The Earth Girl
by earthgirl3015
Summary: And the Doctor, in disbelief said, "Well…I've never seen that before,"
1. Chapter 1

The TARDIS hummed and sang as she twirled through the time vortex. At the control panel, the Doctor twisted a knob and sighed. He'd just dropped River off at her prison cell, after saying goodbye to Amy and Rory for the final time. In his pocket he still had the last page of the book she had written for him.

Amelia Pond, with her fiery red hair and a temper to match, her gung-ho but caring attitude and her ever-lasting devotion to her husband. The Girl Who Waited.

And Rory; stupid, ridiculous, brilliant Rory. The man who had followed his wife through all of time and space, had died several times and come back for her, and then finally sat outside a box, for two thousand lonely years, just waiting to see her face again. The Last Centurion.

Now trapped together in a time he could never visit, lost to him forever. The grief of losing two such brilliant people was eating at him slowly. The TARDIS hummed in sympathy, picking up on his melancholy thoughts. He sniffed, and then wiped his nose, standing up straight and fixing his bow tie,

"Nothing's wrong, old girl, at least I got to say goodbye,"

but his false cheeriness wasn't fooling her. She could feel his sadness pulsing through him. He sighed again, then a true smile came to his face. They may be gone, but they had each other and they were happy. Just because he couldn't visit didn't mean that they would forget him. Nobody ever truly forgot him. And so he smiled, reached for a dial and said,

"Alright, Sexy. Where are you gonna take me next?" And as he twirled the dial, the TARDIS shot off to the left and he grabbed on to the railing, shouting, "GERONIMO!"

Gears grinding and the brakes sticking, the TARDIS ground to a halt. Making sure her shields were up, you could never be too careful, the Doctor pranced towards the door, smoothing his lapels before opening it. The view outside was…dull. Not exactly inspiring. That was really all that could be said. Slightly grey fields of what looked like wheat swayed in a soft wind, giving way to a dust road that lead, as he followed it around the TARDIS, to a small village.

Hardly a rousing sight there either. Rough stone houses with thatched roofs clustered in a small circle, a well in the centre, and small stalls around that. There appeared to be a market on today; the inhabitants looked mostly humanoid. Looking up, he saw a mountain just behind the village, not the tallest he'd ever seen, but it would definitely make him break a sweat if he decided to climb it.

As he walked into town, the people all stopped, stared at him and then carried on with their business when they saw he was no threat. Nobody came up to speak to him, not even the children. Everyone's faces were grim, as if nothing happy ever happened there. In an attempt to bring some liveliness to the market scene, he approached one of the stalls and picked up the first item that came to hand,

"Ooh, look at this, a Jistom pocket watch, marvellous things, every time the hour strikes they make that little twirly noise, you know, weeble, weeble, weeble,"

he glanced sideways to see if there was any reaction to his words. He supposed there was, if having the small family at the next stall look at him as if he was completely mad was a reaction, but then he wasn't sure, as people often looked at him as if he was mad. He sighed and put the gadget back down. He turned to go, obviously no luck with excitement around here, when a small voice came from behind him,

"You new here, mister?"

Turning back he saw the smallest boy from the family looking up at him with quizzical eyes. The mother's eyes had sharpened to pinpricks, he decided to keep a good distance away from the boy, who couldn't have been older than five.

"Why, yes I am. I'm the Doctor, what's your name?"

trying to sound as friendly as possible to the only person who appeared to want to talk to him. The boy looked back at his mother, and seeing her give a small nod, turned back and said proudly,

"I'm Merrick, welcome to Frecondra, the best village on Gorant."

"Pleased to meet you, Merrick," the Doctor smiled indulgently, thinking that if this was the best the planet had to offer, he wouldn't be staying long, "So where is Gorant then?"

The boy looked puzzled, "But don't you know that, Mr Doctor, since you came here in a spaceship?"

"Just Doctor will do," he said, cursing his forgetfulness, he really should have checked where he had landed before leaving the TARDIS, "Been an awfully long trip, could you just refresh my memory for me?"

"Gorant is the fifth planet from our sun, with three moons and two radio towers. We have one space port and four major villages, of which Frecondra is the third largest, but admittedly the best. We're also the only village to have an outcast."

Merrick said this with all the monotone and pride of someone who has heard the words many times from his mother's lap. The Doctor listened incredulously, wondering how the little boy could be so proud of his very backwater town. They only had one space port! No wonder he stuck out like a sore thumb, travellers must be rare, especially if this was all the planet had to offer. Then something the boy said struck him,

"Outcast? What do you mean…" But before he could finish there was a loud cracking sound from the mountain behind him. He quickly turned and watched with horror as several large stones began falling down the mountain, bouncing off the side and hurtling towards the village. He immediately snapped into hero mode, thinking perhaps he might get some excitement after all,

"Merrick, hurry! Get your family and run. Tell everyone to run. Everyone!" He was shouting now, "Move, those rocks are getting…really…close."

He trailed off as he saw everyone staring at him like he was still the insane one. At least he was trying to get away, not standing in the way of a rock fall. Nor did he expect to hear Merrick say,

"You really are new here, aren't you, Doctor?" and then walk calmly back to his family, as if they weren't about to be crushed.

Then he heard a commotion from behind him; turning, he saw several people come hurrying out of a wood that ran beside the village. A tall man in a sort of fur jacket, who walked with the dignity of someone important, a smaller man , who wore scruffy and dirty clothes, and a young girl, walking tall and upright, but her eyes betrayed her fear. She watched the other people in the square cautiously, almost as if they would hurt her if they had half a chance.

"Come on, girl, do your job," the tall man shouted, over the roar of plummeting rocks, his hands on his hips, looking indignant. The girl shot him a look of utter loathing and then strode across the square. There was finally a reaction from the townspeople, but it was not a particularly nice one. They parted for her, all of them edging out of her way, as if she had some contagious disease. She was walking right towards the rock fall.

"What's happening?" the Doctor wanted to know, "Where is she going?" Nobody spoke, they just all stared at the girl. Afraid that she would get hurt the Doctor started walking forwards,

"Seriously, Miss! Miss, get away from there, the rocks!" The girl stopped and appeared to brace herself, spreading her legs to shoulder width apart, her hands held straight in front of her, ignoring him completely. She took a deep breath.

And as the Doctor looked on in amazement, the rocks began to slow, stopped bouncing, stopped falling, stopped everything, until they were dangling just above the girl's head.

And then she pulled in her arms and appeared to push. The rocks began to fly up, back the way they had come, some of them even forming together and eventually fitting back into the mountainside, looking as if they had never moved. And the Doctor, in disbelief said,

"Well…I've never seen that before,"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N Hello. Thank you to the people that reviewed last time. So I'm back, after a long time off. Let me know what you think. Again, please don't be mean just for the sake of being mean, but constructive criticism is always welcome.

Everyone else, on the other hand, treated this as if it were an everyday thing, as if girls normally threw several tonnes worth of rock backwards through the air with what appeared to be the power of her mind alone. Some of them even had the nerve to be unhappy about it,

"Where were you, girl?" one of the women spat, "They were too close this time, my Timmy could have got hit."

"Yeah," a grubby looking farmer sneered, "You should be quicker to get here. It's us honest folk that'll get squashed, not you, freak."

The girl appeared to be studying her handiwork but then turned at the final comment and stared at the man. Her eyes were a shade of green that the Doctor, in all his years of travel, danger and wisdom, could not have named. It was a shade between grass, fresh leaves and sea green and all of them at once. And they were narrowed at the man with undisguised distaste and hatred,

"Then build me a cabin closer to the town, you fucking imbecile," she snarled.

Her voice was harsh with anger, but the way her mouth wrapped around the words was different to that of the townspeople. She clearly wasn't a local. The Doctor was slightly appalled at the language of this young girl, she couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen, but from the slight wisp of weariness in her voice it appeared that she had had this argument several times.

"Enough," the man in the fur coat shouted for quiet, then took the girl's hand and pressed some coins into it,

"Thank you for your services. Good day."

And with that he strode away. Everybody else followed his lead, going about their business as if some great disaster hadn't just been averted. Except the Doctor, who was still staring at the girl as if she had grown an extra head, and the grubby looking man, who had come out of the woods with her. But he bowed his head when the girl looked at him, and shuffled off to one of the houses. The girl looked at her fistful of coins with distaste and then strode away, back in the direction of the woods. Nobody followed her.

The Doctor stared at her until she reached the tree line and then started to hurry after her. Here was his excitement, the biggest thing he had come across, quite possibly ever, and he wasn't about to lose her. When she heard his footsteps she stopped and sighed,

"What do you want now, you little bastards? I'm not in the mood for your shit today so just leave me alone."

"I'd rather not," the Doctor said, rather confused, "You're most definitely not shit, you're quite possibly the most brilliant thing I've ever seen."

That had her spinning round. The expression on her face was mostly surprise, shock and anger. But then she looked at him properly, and her face went blank.

"You're not from around here, are you?" she asked, in an indifferent tone.

"What gave it away? The bow tie, or the fact that I have an actual range of emotions, not just bored stiff and spiteful?" he answered rather cheekily, hoping to get a smile on her face. She was thin, with long brown hair that fell in slight waves around her shoulders. Her face looked as if it rarely smiled and indeed she didn't crack one now, although her eyes now lit up with interest.

"Frankly I think it was the hair. What are you trying to pull off, exactly? Uncontrollable cowlick?" And this time a small smile did grace her face, making her positively adorable.

The Doctor pretended to be put out, following up with,

"I'll have you know that this is all the rage in the Vegas Galaxies, although it's not as good without a fez. But I tell you something I can't pull off. Throwing several tonnes worth of falling rock back through the air as if they weigh nothing at all." And like that the smile vanished.

"What, not impressed by my party piece?" her voice had turned bitter again, her eyes seeming to flash dark for a second.

"That was the party piece!" the Doctor said incredulously, "There's more!"

She looked at him warily,

"Isn't this the part where you start running away? It was for everybody else."

"When I'm afraid I don't run in fear… you know, much. Anyway, I'm the Doctor. And you are?" He held out his hand.

The girl looked at it, then back up at him, watching him closely, looking for any signs that this was a joke. Seeing none she accepted the hand, saying,

"Andy. And I'm not sick, so there's no reason to follow me. I've always been like this."

She started to walk again, obviously trying to make him leave her alone. But now he was even more intrigued,

"Really, you've always been able to hurl rocks through the air as if they weigh nothing?" catching up to her side.

Andy gave an irritable sigh and said,

"Look, what is it going to take to get you to leave me alone?"

"Tell me," he said happily, bouncing on the spot like an excitable child.

"What?"

"Tell me how you can do this. Tell me what else you can do. Satisfy my curiosity and I will leave you alone forever."

"I already told you, I've always been able to do this. And why can't you just leave me alone, like everyone else!"

"Is that really what you want? To be left alone?" She just ignored him, walking a little further up the path and then turning into the right. Completely undeterred he followed her. The sight he saw tugged on his heart strings a little. She had said 'cabin' but what it really was, was four wooden walls and a flat wooden roof. It barely looked big enough to lie down in. This…shack was where she stayed? Andy opened a small door in the side of it and placed her money under a stone in one of the corners. Then she shut the door and turned to look at him, a little sheepish for the first time.

"So…what do you want to know?"

"This is where you live?" it came out in a disbelieving whisper.

"No," she said, abruptly and defiantly. Then she took a deep breath and said, "It's just where they think I live. It's all they built for me. I built something better."

"May I see it?" She looked at him, calculatingly.

"Depends whether I like your questions or not," and she started walking again.

"Oh, so you've decided to answer my questions now?" The Doctor said as he hurried to keep up.

"If you won't leave me alone otherwise," she said, although there was a hint of a smile in her voice. She was leading him through the woods and although there was no visible path, she walked confidently, with the attitude of someone who knew exactly where they were going. He noticed for the first time that she was bare-foot.

"Well?" she asked over her shoulder. The Doctor thought for a second, what did he want to know first?

"Where are your parents?" That made her pause. But he just had to know, there was no way parents would allow the treatment of a child like this.

"I don't know," she said softly, "I never knew them. Old Matros is my guardian, but he's definitely not my father."

"You have a guardian but they still did this to you?" The Doctor was outraged on Andy's behalf. What kind of man let this happen to a child? Andy turned at the sound of his concern, and her eyes widened in surprise when she saw it was genuine. Clearly she wasn't used to people feeling anything but contempt for her.

"Well, he didn't say yes, but he didn't say no when they came and took me," she said simply, continuing to walk, "Next?"

Bewildered by her seemingly blasé acknowledgement of her guardian's weakness, the Doctor asked the first thing that came to mind,

"Why aren't you wearing shoes?" She seemed to find the randomness of the question amusing,

"I'm connected to the earth. It's stronger when there's no clothing obstructing that connection." She stopped and turned, seemingly anticipating the next question. The Doctor was just staring at her again and then asked, rather hoarsely,

"How?" She shrugged,

"Don't know, just always have been. I feel the power of the earth through my feet, and as long as my feet touch the soil I never get tired. I can tell you everything that is happening on the planet, anywhere, right now. For instance, the western fields need to be watered as the soil is getting dry, that five children are playing tig in the southern meadow and that something I have never felt before landed in the eastern fields, and that a few minutes after it landed, you stepped out of it."

For the first time possibly ever, the Doctor was speechless. He had never met anybody who could do anything close to what Andy was professing to do. Or anyone who could apparently do this as if it came as naturally to them as breathing. He was so busy staring at her in disbelief that he almost missed the pointed questioning end of her sentence.

"Oh that, that was my ship, my space ship."

"You didn't use the space port?" Andy looked confused.

"She doesn't like space ports, makes her feel somewhat inadequate next to all those flashy types, although don't tell her I said that, she'll make life harsh for me." The Doctor grinned in fondness of his beloved ship. He would always believe she was better than all the rest of them.

Andy still looked bewildered but now an eyebrow had risen as well,

"Please tell me you're not one of those men who treats his ship likes it's alive. But what I don't understand is how she landed in the first place. We all would have noticed a giant ship coming down from the sky, but she just seemed to appear."

"Hey, the TARDIS _is_ alive, thank you very much, and that's the beauty of her, she just sort of appears." He looked rather proud of this fact, waving his hands around to try and imitate the TARDIS's ability to materialise.

"Oh good gods, you've named her and everything. Well, I'd certainly like to see this ship, especially since no one appears to have complained about her yet."

"That would be the chameleon circuit," the Doctor said knowledgably, and at Andy's confused look continued, "Basically a shield that hides her in plain sight." Her eyebrows rose but Andy looked grudgingly impressed.

"Must be something to see then, this TARDIS,"

"Oh she is, best ship to ever fly," the Doctor said proudly. Andy smiled, only a little indulgently,

"Any more questions?"

"Are you kidding?" he answered, "I'm just getting started."

A/N Hope you enjoyed, and I hope her powers are believable too. If not please let me know and I'll try and fix it.


	3. Chapter 3

The conversation wandered as they did, climbing what felt like a small hill. The Doctor learned many things about the seemingly magical girl; that she had never had any real friends "does being asked to join in hide and seek once count?", that the schooling here was not exactly top class "I can read, write and add and subtract, apparently that was good enough" and that she had been living like this since she was nine "I'm about eighteen now, so that's at least nine years stuck in a clearing in the woods".

After this last revelation the Doctor was too angry to continue, so they sat in companionable silence, on a small hillock in the middle of the woods. Gazing back towards the town, the first thing Andy saw was the mountain. It was inescapable, present in the distance for miles around the town. The town itself was signposted only by some wisps of smoke coming from the chimneys. Gazing away from it, all that was on the horizon was the rest of the forest and then endless fields, sometimes intersected with a single dirt track, that supposedly lead to another town. She didn't know. She'd never left the town. But how she wished she could. Leave the responsibility, the hatred, the ostracism behind and take off into the world. She'd go to the space port and get a ship off this shitty mud ball of a planet as soon as she could. And she'd never come back. Once she got rid of this odd, rather irritating man, of course.

Andy sighed. That was the dream anyway, and the hope of that dream meant that she had a small, but growing pile of coins from the 'work' she did that would eventually add up to enough to get her off this rock. She couldn't wait.

The Doctor appeared to have calmed down now, enough to continue his interrogation,

"So you said that throwing rocks was a party trick. But how does the trick work, exactly? Is it levitation?" Andy thought about it, really thought about it, for the first time. It had always come as naturally as breathing to her, and she'd never really thought about what she was doing.

"I just…sort of ask them to stop. I…I pull power up from the earth and sort of direct it at the rocks and ask them to stop, or slow down, or whatever, and they do. They always do. And then I…push up with my power and make them go backwards, back the way they came. I'm sorry, but that's about the best way I can describe…you're looking at me funny." And indeed he was. The Doctor's mouth had fallen open as his mind worked double time, trying to figure out what on earth he had just heard.

"You just asked about three tonnes of plummeting stone to kindly stop falling and they did! How…how…wait, you say you pull power, how do you do that?" In response she waggled her feet,

"I told you, I feel the power in the earth. And when I need a little bit of it I just sort of...pull it up through myself, to where it's needed." Now the Doctor was staring at her feet, almost warily, as if they might suddenly attack him.

"To where it's needed?" his voice was hoarse, as his Time Lord brain tried to take in the enormity of what was in front of him.

"Well, sometimes it's just little things; like Farmer Jareth, his barn roof fell down five years ago and he…well, ordered me to fix it. So I lifted a few beams out of the way, they were really heavy but the earth helped, and managed to sort it all out."

"How heavy were the beams?" the Doctor asked, dreading the answer slightly.

"About eighty to ninety kilograms, I think." This new information caused the Doctor's eyes to bug out,

"You lifted ninety kilograms when you were just thirteen years old!"

"With the earth's help," Andy protested, not really seeing the problem. She'd had this…ability all her life and these tasks were perfectly natural to her.

"But that's…you couldn't…how were you not…how is this possible? You shouldn't be able to do something like that, it's impossible!" Andy was now incredibly fed up. This strange man had followed her, demanding answers, and now apparently he wasn't happy with those answers. Well, she didn't need to sit here listening to his incredulous tone a minute longer.

"Yes…for you," she snapped, "But apparently for me, it is perfectly possible, since I've been doing this nearly every day of my life." And she stood up, intending to walk off and leave this weird infuriating man to his moaning. And would have done, had he not grabbed her hand.

"Wait, wait, I'm not insulting you, or at least I'm not meaning to…but please understand, I've been to so many places, met millions of people, millions of species, seen the beginning of planets and the end of the universe, but in all my life I have never met anyone who can do what you can."

There was a moment of silence as his words settled over her. Two emotions ranked high; interest, as this man was clearly some kind of time traveller, who must have seen things that she could only dream of; and loneliness, true loneliness, for he had never met anyone who was the same as her, she was still completely alone, not just on this planet, but apparently in the entire universe. It was an exhilarating and depressing moment for Andy, although she quickly pushed the negative out of her mind and focused on her wonder,

"You're a time traveller!" The Doctor suddenly seemed to realise what he had said, and immediately began to ramble,

"What! No, I never said that, I was just exaggerating, no one could possibly see the end of the universe, would be all dark, erm…so this power…"

"Oh no, don't you bring this back to me. It makes sense, a time traveller with a ship that can miraculously appear in the middle of the eastern fields." She looked at him pointedly, daring him to argue. He smirked, he always loved to boast that he could travel almost anywhere and anywhen, and never missed a chance to talk about the TARDIS,

"She is a beauty, Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, the TARDIS…"

"Best ship ever to fly," Andy quoted him from earlier with a giggle. He smiled at her expression, laughter made her look closer to her eighteen years. Then she sighed wistfully,

"What must it be like, to travel so far, to get away from anywhere that doesn't suit, to never be tied down? Bet it's the best." She stared at the sky, imagining the galaxies beyond it. The Doctor realised that was a bit of a naïve stand point, but encouraged her nonetheless,

"Oh yes, travelling the ages, meeting past kings, future emperors, battling monsters, saving princesses, getting into rather a lot of trouble while doing it too, there was this one planet where apparently even asking to shake the princess's hand was proposing marriage! Believe me, barely got out of that one by the skin of my teeth…" He looked to see Andy's reaction and was pleased to see her staring enviously at him. But his mind wouldn't let him rest and he had to bring it up again,

"So…your power. You said that was the party trick. What else can you do?" Andy gave it some more thought, seeing to the heart of what she considered the everyday,

"Hmm, I can tell you the percentages of this planet," seeing his look of confusion she stated, "sixty percent water, mostly salt, although there is a huge fresh water lake in the centre of the continent which amounts to about fifteen percent, forty percent land mass, one giant continent, on which are four cities, the smallest no bigger than a handful of houses, and the largest covers an area of about a hundred square miles. Most of the land is arable, although about nine percent of it is woodland, about four percent of which is represented by the woods we are currently standing in. No mountain ranges, only three others besides the one in front of us, none of which have ever been scaled successfully. The soil content of the earth…"

"Right, right I understand, you can tell literally everything about the planet simply by placing a toe on it, is that about right?" the Doctor was amazed that she could reel all of this off for him, consulting only the ground beneath her feet. He would have to check on the TARDIS matrix to see if she was correct.

"I don't know, I've never been to other planets," another wistful look at the sky, "Um…what else? Err, I can make the trees dance."

"What?" He hadn't expected that. Sighing she stood up and gracefully held her arms above her head, like a conductor at the orchestra, and then began to twirl. And everything responded. The Doctor could feel it, not as sharply as she could obviously, but his Time Lord brain was picking up the energy of…everything flowing towards Andy. Leaves and pine needles came away from the trees and began to spin around her, creating a green hurricane that nearly obscured her body. The small patch of earth where she spun seemed to glow iridescent green. The closest trees bowed their heads towards her, following her movements. The wind seemed to have intensified in the short moments she had been dancing. And all the while she spun slowly with a small smile on her face, as though the entire world was whispering secrets that only she could hear.

**A/N** Hey guys, thanks to everyone who has favourited this, which is rather a few of you. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Again, constructive criticism is welcome, being mean not so much. Please review and let me know what you think. Are Andy's powers still believable?


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Thank you so much to everyone who is still following this weird fanfiction - and I'm afraid it only get weirder in this chapter. Please let me know if I went too far with Andy's power, which would be fair enough. But then this is fanfic, anything is possible right? Either way let me know, and enjoy.**

And then she just stopped. The wind dropped almost instantly, as did the leaves and pine needles. The trees stood upright again, and the ground faded to its natural colour. She looked towards him with a slightly embarrassed look on her face. Clearly no one had ever seen this before. But the Doctor was speechless yet again. She didn't just make the trees dance; she pulled the power of the world to her. Nobody could do that, it wasn't possible.

But he knew better than to voice those thoughts, as he'd only receive the same snappy answer he'd gotten before, and as intrigued as he was by this girl, as admittedly the more he learned the more he became uneasy; he couldn't let her walk away yet. He had so much left to ask her. So he cleared his throat and said,

"That was amazing. I can quite honestly say I have never seen anything like that before," Andy blushed at his compliment, again making herself look younger, "What else can you do?"

"Err, I can feel the history of places," Again he gave her a quizzical look, "It happened in the Mayor's house. As soon as I walked through the door, it felt…cold, dangerous, and I was afraid. One day I touched the wall and saw…I suppose it was a vision, I didn't understand it at the time. I saw the old Mayor and the current one standing arguing. Our Mayor didn't have his badge on, so he wasn't Mayor yet. Anyway they looked like they were shouting at each other, but I couldn't hear anything. Then the younger Mayor shoved the older one and yelled in his face. The old Mayor grabbed his chest, where his heart was, and collapsed. The younger Mayor went on shouting, then realised he wasn't responding and ran to get help," throughout this story, Andy's hands clenched until they became white, "He was just lying there, pale, white as cream," she let out a deep breath, "I learned later that the old Mayor had died of a heart attack. Directly, our Mayor did nothing wrong, really, it wasn't like he shoved a knife in him. But he did seem to cause the heart attack," she paused to take another deep breath and run her hands through her hair, "I've never looked at him the same since."

The Doctor let out a long breath,

"Did you ever tell anyone?" Andy looked up in shock and then gave a harsh laugh,

"Who would have believed me? I was six years old at the time. Who pays any attention to the stories of six year olds?"

"Six years old," the Doctor shook his head in disbelief. For such a young person, she had been through a lot in her life, "So how did you see this again? You said you…"

"Touched the wall, yes. If I went back there today I could probably tell you the exact stone."

"So…just a touch?" Andy sighed again, blowing her hair out of her eyes,

"I don't know how it happened. I just…the earth remembers. That's how I would put it. You know how some people say that history is written in the stones of houses, or castles or something. Well, I can see that history. The earth remembers." As she repeated her words, the Doctor shivered.

The earth was supposed to be…well just that, some dirt and grass, and if you went deep enough, magma. It wasn't supposed to be a memory bank, or a power source. But like she had said, for Andy, it was. And there was absolutely no rhyme or reason for it. There was nothing special about her, not that his Time Lord senses could pick up on aside from the obvious, no feature that stuck out, not even antennae. She looked…well, human. As human as Amy had, or even himself. And yet she commanded what could quite possibly be the greatest power he had ever seen. And she did it all without even realising it! In fact she used it to help put barns back together!

She was staggering, she was incredible, she was…dangerous. Unbelievably dangerous, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. She was more powerful than him, he knew that without a doubt. She could do things that he could barely imagine. And if she chose to turn all of that power against him, then he had absolutely no chance of survival. If he was right about the strength of her powers…she could quite easily turn him into dust. And with just one thought!

She was nothing he'd ever seen before, she terrified him and exhilarated him. The only other person who ever did that was…well, River, but she was his wife, she was supposed to.

"Anything else?" Her voice broke him out of his spiralling thoughts. She was looking at him expectantly. He cleared his throat,

"Um…well, is there?" remembering just who was asking the questions here. Andy thought about it some more, and then smiled,

"It used to terrify old Matros when I did it…but you'll have to wait until tonight, I'm afraid. It only really works at night." Uneasy with the fact that she had already scared her 'guardian' with this particular power, he was willing to wait until nightfall before seeing anymore.

Looking up he saw the sun was nearing the horizon,

"Want to go into town for some food?" the Doctor asked in an upbeat voice, trying to alleviate his own tension. The effect was instantaneous. Andy's smile vanished, and she seemed to curl in on herself.

"I don't go into town," she said, "Not unless there's a rock fall."

"But how do you get food then?" the Doctor wanted to know.

"There's a food cart that comes up to the shack once a week, usually anything left over from the market. I buy up whatever I need there. Anything else, I generally find in the woods. Sometimes I even go hunting." Andy explained. The Doctor shook his head,

"That's no good, you shouldn't be afraid of those meanies. You know they're probably just jealous, right?" Andy lifted her head and stared at him, a sneer curling her lips,

"Do I look like I'm five? Don't try and fucking placate me, Doctor, or sugar-coat the truth. They hate me, they always have. I'm different and weird and a freak. Why the hell would anyone be jealous of that?" Her voice had descended almost into a growl by the time she'd finished. In the half-light her eyes appeared darker, almost black. The Doctor shivered at her tone, but still asked,

"Then why do you stay?" That seemed to stump her. She looked away, back towards the village and sighed, then turned back. Her eyes had changed back to their normal colour.

"Because if I don't protect them from the rock falls, who will? No one else can do what I do. They'd all be crushed, even the children. I…they hate me, but they're still people. Even if they aren't nice about it." The Doctor smiled, and released a silent sigh of relief. Underneath all of the cynicism and anger, there was a good heart beating in Andy's chest. He felt a little more at ease now. Someone who considered all life in that hateful little town precious would never endanger innocent lives, not even in anger. Right?

"So then, what's for dinner?" he asked, back to his usual jovial mood. Andy smiled at his childish antics and replied,

"I caught a deer earlier today, would that be acceptable for you?"

"Ooh, venison. Haven't had that in a long time," he replied, his mouth watering already.

**A/N Hope you enjoyed. And please note the eye changing thing, which does become rather important later. Reviews are awesome, so let me know what you thought**


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor relaxed in front of the fire, taking in the smell of roasting venison and the sounds of the sleepy forest. The setting sun had cast a ruddy light over the forest and the animals of the forest were calling their good nights to each other. Or at least that's what he pretended they were doing.

Andy had led him from the small hillock back down into the forest, although he could honestly say he couldn't quite remember the direction she had taken. But soon they had arrived at a smallish clearing, with an obvious fire ring near the middle of it. Andy explained that the fire didn't really feel painful to the earth, but she was still wary of it, and kept it as far away from the trees as she could. She described the fire as an almost ticklish sensation, like being tickled by a candle. The Doctor had listened with interest but had been much more interested in her shelter, which she had allegedly built herself. It wasn't quite an accurate statement. The trees had surely already been growing there; she had just…manipulated them.

A row of about six silver birches stood inside the circle of the clearing. They had more intertwining branches than any other silver birch and their bark was the healthiest he'd ever seen. However, it was very doubtful that they had grown straight and then curved gracefully half way up the tree, straightening for a metre to around an almost ninety degree angle, and then continued growing at what appeared to be a forty five degree angle. The shelter looked like half a tent had been set up and then left open to the elements. He had asked, after the shock had worn off, how she kept the rain off. Andy had replied that the shelter was usually deep enough to protect her, but otherwise she hung branches from weeping willows over the front of it, if there was especially bad weather.

The Doctor had lain down inside, and found it very cosy, even if the ground was a little uncomfortable.

"There's a dip in it," he explained, pointing it out. She had giggled and said that of course there was, and lay down in it. A little of his fear returned, as the Doctor saw that the earth itself had formed a dip which perfectly fitted Andy's body into it, but he smothered it before it could show. After all, it wasn't dangerous, if anything it was her version of a memory foam mattress. But still…it niggled at him.

Before he could return to considering her impossibility, Andy told him the meat was ready. Taking a plate that had been moulded from a knot in an oak tree, again with only the power of her mind, Andy served him roast venison with several different herb flavourings and some wild mushrooms she'd collected by a small pond nearby. There were few utensils, but the Doctor had eaten far worse meals, so he wasn't about to complain. Instead the pair of them relaxed into comfortable silence as they chewed the tender juicy meat.

When they'd finished Andy asked him to tell her a story, one of his adventures. He smiled and decided to tell her about the time he'd been thrown into a palace prison for breaking the King's crown. This was on the planet Natibo, where the people were tall, thin and green, they lived for hundreds of years at a time and their metals were apparently as delicate as spun glass. By the end of the story they were both howling with laughter,

"So you just…threw the kumquat at him and he ran…ran away screaming that the orange bouncing ball was going to transport him to a different dimension…hahaha!" Andy nearly collapsed off of the log she had been sitting on, she was laughing so hard.

"One thing about the Natiboans, they are incredibly gullible, at least about things outside of their world. They don't even have a space port. As far as I know they've never left their home planet." the Doctor wiped tears of mirth away from his eyes as he remembered sending the tall green guard, who had been holding a very sharp spear, running with only a little orange fruit.

"You must have been like some kind of god to them, with your magical disappearing box." Andy said, still giggling slightly.

"Apparently not magical enough to avoid beheading. Not magical enough to be excused for breaking the King's crown."

"Did you have to touch it though?" Andy said with a smile. The Doctor smiled knowingly back, enjoying the happiness he had brought to the sullen girl's face,

"It was made of the purest metals they could find, shaped by their most competent sculptor and had lots of sparkly jewels on it. I dare you to walk past it without wanting to touch it." Andy giggled again. The Doctor found he liked the sound. She was much too old for her age, mentally if not physically, she should be laughing more. Andy took a deep breath and then looked up at the sky.

"It's dark." she stated. The Doctor looked up too. The stars were shining and a red moon was just peeping over the tops of the trees.

"So it is," he said, wondering if she was propositioning him.

"You want to see my last trick?" she asked. He was confused for a second, still thinking she was coming on to him, then remembered what she had said earlier,

"Oh, um…yes, go on then." She smiled at his apparent nervousness.

"It's alright, really. Nothing bad will happen to you."

"Oh good, that's always nice to know," he said sarcastically. She stuck out her tongue at him and then walked to the shelter, lying down on her back in her body dip. She glanced back up at him, to where he was watching with a kind of wary fascination,

"Here I go," she said.

She let out a deep breath, and the effect was instantaneous. Her body relaxed completely, as the ground beneath her lit up in that slightly eerie luminescent light from before. Her eyes had fallen shut and she appeared to be completely asleep. Almost too asleep.

"Andy?" the Doctor crouched by her side, whipping out his sonic screwdriver and taking a reading of her body. What he saw made him freeze in disbelief.

"No…" he breathed, "It's not…"

The sonic screwdriver was telling him that her vital organs were stable and in perfect health, her brain activity was normal, although much larger than the average person, but her body was in a comatose state. She had, somehow, put herself into a coma, without any trauma or subconscious reaction at all. She was simply...sleeping. But the thing that bothered him were the strange heat signals he was picking up on her arms, legs, neck, just about every area of her body. He reached down and gingerly lifted one of her arms to get a better look.

Only to discover that he could only lift it a mere two centimetres off the ground. But he could also feel something on the under-skin of her arm. Careful not to hurt her, he gently turned her arm…and nearly dropped it in shock.

Feelers…no, vines…no, tentacles…no, strands, strands of the earth itself were attached to Andy's skin. Looking closer he saw that they appeared to be embedded in her pores, and that they were pulsing ever so slightly. He replaced the arm, and then turned towards her head as a slightly sickening thought occurred to him. He gently turned her head, pulled back her hair and…yes, there was a large one attached to the base of her skull.

The full force of what he was seeing made him drop her hair in astonishment. Connected, her word for her affinity with the earth. But this, this was something completely new. Well, maybe not completely, remembering back to his ninth regeneration, the Game Station, that poor girl strung up with miles of cabling attached to her, being fed information. But this wasn't machinery, this was organic. The most organic connection between a person and the earth he had ever seen. And it chilled him to the bones.

He turned away and went to stoke the fire, trying to get away from the eerie light that still surrounded Andy's very still comatose form. And so he missed her eyes opening, and the now black irises watching his back, hungrily.

**A/N Hey, hope you enjoyed this. Please let me know if Andy's powers are still believable at all and if they aren't...well I won't go changing this one, because I actually really like it. Anyway, please review and let me know what you think.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello, miss me? Here's a new chapter for you, please review and let me know what you think**

Dawn came suddenly, as it always did in the woods. One minute everything seemed dark and somewhat dreary, the next the trees exploded with birdsong and the music of insects. The world had awoken and wanted everyone to know.

People in the village were stirring, livestock in the fields moving towards the troughs and fences and the city rush began.

And the mountain shook slightly, in the cool morning air. Andy sighed in her mind. There would be another rock fall today, probably a big one. And that meant she should probably be getting up round about now, if she wanted to make it back in time.

Pulling the little parts of herself that always seemed to spread out when she slept back together, she severed the full connection with the earth and stretched, moaning as her muscles moved. She took a deep breath of fresh air and smelled the slightly stale aroma of old wood-smoke and cooked venison. Remembering, suddenly, that she had a guest, Andy turned towards the Doctor.

He was facing away from her, hunched, his hands holding his elbows, staring into the remains of the fire. It was not an encouraging posture.

"Hey," she said softly, trying not to startle him. It didn't work; he jumped up anyway, "You didn't need to stay, you know. You could have gone back to the TARDIS, no need to sit out in the cold all night."

"I've had worse nights," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground, "And I didn't know the way back there." Andy sighed. She'd scared him. After everything he'd accepted yesterday, she'd finally scared him off with this last thing. She probably shouldn't have been surprised. Everyone was scared of at least one aspect of her.

"Right, well, I need to head back into town, there's going to be another rock fall today, so I'll lead you back."

"Another…" he frowned, looking both wary and intrigued, "How do you know?"

"The mountain shook, just as I was waking up. That generally means the loose stones will begin to fall soon. I really need to get going." She stood up as she was saying this, and didn't miss the way he took the tiniest step back. She turned in what appeared to be a random direction and began walking. The Doctor hurried to keep up.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Andy leading, the Doctor following. Finally she couldn't take any more. The silence was awkward and she could feel his stare burning her back and it was making her uncomfortable and annoyed,

"Look, if you have questions, just spit them out, or if you're going to run in fear and jump into the TARDIS, could you at least let me know." Her voice was full of venom, and she couldn't believe she was this angry this early in the morning. A dull ache sprang up, somewhere in the back of her head, and the old scar on her left pinkie finger burned for a second. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and then took a deep breath as the thumping retreated.

"Sorry, I don't know what came over me there. I didn't mean to sound that bitter," she said, turning in fear that she'd sent him running with the tone of her voice alone. He was still there, although he looked a bit shocked, and perhaps a little scared of her anger, "It's just that nobody's ever really stuck around this long." Embarrassed that she'd admitted this, she resumed walking.

"What happened to you last night?" She turned. The Doctor hadn't moved. Taking a deep breath, she thought about it,

"I said that I can draw power from the earth. Well, the power that I don't use, I keep inside me, in case I need it again. But at night I've still got a lot more power in me than I should, so I just sort of…return it." The Doctor was silent, thinking about what she was saying, then he said,

"But surely that's only a little power, compared to what you have inside you. You don't need to essentially shut down your body for that." Andy looked shocked that he'd even said that,

"I don't shut down my body, I fell asleep."

"That wasn't sleep, Andy. Sleep is when you curl up and dream pretty dreams all night. Do you even dream?" She looked insulted at that,

"Of course I dream! When I was younger I used to dream all the time, that my parents would come back for me, take me home and I'd have a happy life. Then my powers came into effect, and I found out that I could return my powers, and suddenly I didn't miss those dreams. Because look around, it's not like they're going to come true. I'll be alone, on this rock, forever! Unless someone takes me away." Perhaps it was the dim light in the early morning, but the Doctor swore her irises turned black and hungry during those last sentences. Then she closed her eyes, brought one hand up to the side of her face and winced, as if in pain. When she opened them again, her eyes were that same mesmerising green.

"Sorry, bloody headaches. It's worse this morning than I think it's ever been." The Doctor nodded his head slowly, suspicious of both her changing eye colour and her rapid mood swings. But he didn't want to bring up a touchy subject, so let it lie for now.

"It wasn't sleep, Andy. Your body completely shut down except for your vital organs and brain activity. You went into a self-induced coma and somehow made weird little vine things attach themselves to you."

"The vines? They're just the visible connection to the earth, they don't mean any harm."

"But the coma, Andy, do you understand how dangerous that is? You could slip deeper into it, or get lost under the earth, forever!" He was really worried about this. Sure she was dangerous, possibly the biggest disaster-waiting-to-happen he'd ever seen, but it would certainly be a terrible thing to lose her, especially before his curiosity was fully satisfied. So he was rather miffed when all she did was roll her eyes.

"You think I don't know that it's dangerous. When I was eight, I went deeper than I was supposed to and slept for three days straight. Believe me, old Matros was almost going out of his mind." She smiled, as if it was a fond memory.

"Then how can you keep doing this, when you still know the risks?" he wanted to know. He was startled to see a look of disbelief on her face,

"Is it such a difficult concept?"

"What?" now he was getting annoyed, especially since he was a one thousand year old Time Lord being outsmarted by an eighteen year old girl.

"Giving back what you take?" He was stunned. Was that how she saw her power, not just something to steal from the very ground beneath her feet, but something to return! Suddenly he relaxed. She had perhaps the strongest power he'd ever seen and yet she understood the give and take that went with power. She didn't force it, indeed she embraced it. She was also a good person. She wouldn't misuse her power. He hoped. Even the strongest could fall, and tried hard not to think of Gallifrey.

"What does it feel like?" he suddenly wanted to know, his mood buoyant after this recent discovery. Andy looked startled, but tried to think back to it,

"When I fall asleep, it's like letting everything go, relaxing completely. Everything goes dark, but at the same time, I'm aware."

"Of the outside world?" suddenly worried she'd heard him last night.

"No, of the earth," seeing the puzzled look she tried to explain, "Imagine the power of this planet like threads of light, covering the entire planet," he thought about the planet Earth, and the streams of electricity that covered it, invisible but still there, "It's like, I don't see it, I sense it. I can still feel what goes on, but mostly it's just sleeping, the same as I am." He didn't really understand but nodded anyway.

"And waking up, it's like parts of myself have become embedded in the earth, outside of my body, and I have to call them back to me."

"Your mind…comes apart?" he asked, worry tinging his voice.

"No, nothing like that," she reassured him, "It's more…like I'm trying to sense it all, everything under the earth, but there's too much. Even on a rock this size, there's too much going on for me to see at once, so I seem to sort of…split my conscience. Does that make any sense?"

"Honestly?" the Doctor asked, "No, Andy, it doesn't. Not even to me, and I can get my head around time travel. You are…impossible. And before you say anything," cutting off her irritated look, "I know that you've been doing this all your life and you are…incredible, brilliant, beautiful but you're still impossible. No one should be able to hold this amount of power in them! No one! Nor should they be able to control it, it would burn them up! Or be able to do what you can do, hurling giant rocks backwards, it just isn't possible for one mind to do that!" There was silence for a few beats after the Doctor's awe-filled rant. Then,

"So there really is no one out there like me then?" The Doctor's heart broke slightly at her despondent tone. He wished he could give her some comfort, but what can you say to someone who is completely alone in the universe. How can any one person possibly make that better?

"I'm alone too, you know," he found himself saying. She looked up at him, eyes shiny with tears, although she stubbornly held them back, "I'm a Time Lord, the last Time Lord. There's no others like me. They're all dead, in the Last Great Time War. My planet is gone. I'm completely alone." He had often thought these thoughts. He had no idea what had prompted him to tell her this, but he felt himself wanting her to know, that even if he couldn't help her, he could give her someone who empathised. Who understood what she was going through. The woods were silent again for a few more seconds. Then a sound that startled him. A laugh. A low, strained but still tangible laugh.

"We are a sorry pair, aren't we?" she said, wiping away the one tear that had fallen from her eyes. He looked at her and what he saw in her eyes had him laughing too, although he didn't quite understand why. They were both alone in the universe, no one to care for them and yet they could still laugh. And in that second he felt so very alive.

When the laughter eventually quietened down, she looked at him and said,

"Come on, people to save, rocks to stop, life to live and all that nonsense." She smiled. He returned it.

"Yes, indeed," and he walked beside her all the way back to the village, feeling lighter than he had in weeks.


	7. Chapter 7

**Um...hi. For anyone that was actually enjoying this story, I'm sorry I was away for so long, but I've just graduated university, so had a dissertation to do, and then real life to figure out (real life sucks) and on and on the list piles up. So I'm sorry if I left you hanging, but I'm gonna finish the story now. Enjoy...**

As they stepped out of the tree line the almighty crack that sounded a rock fall echoed across the land. Andy sighed and hurried towards the mountain, the villagers parting ways for her again as she did. The Doctor began walking towards the TARDIS, still keeping his eyes on her, but wanting to be able to duck inside after the show. He was still intrigued to know if Andy was right about the percentages of the planet, and he also wanted to research her a bit. She was a marvel and he really wanted to know if she was a one-off or if there were possibly others out there. He stopped just outside the TARDIS, but something in the grass caught his eye. Surely there hadn't been creepers in the grass yesterday, had there?

Upon reaching the base of the mountain, Andy looked up at the tumbling rocks. There weren't that many, but they were massive. They would easily be able to crush several houses if they fell directly onto the village. Stretching out her arms, she pulled up with her mind. Almost instantly strength flooded her, flowing up through her body and concentrating especially on her hands and head. With her power now in place Andy reached up with her consciousness, spreading out the power from her hands and thought _stop slow stop_. Opening her eyes slightly, she saw that the rocks had stopped; she felt the weight of them against the barrier of power she had set up like a net around her and were dangling just above her head, like a rather strange chandelier. Closing her eyes so that she could concentrate, she pushed upwards with the 'net' of power. She didn't have to watch, she could feel the rocks as they began to move backwards, fighting her every centimetre, but she simply willed them back even stronger. Taking another deep breath as they ascended to near the places they had fallen from, she began to push them back into place, trying to find a position that would make it difficult for them to fall again. Finally she was satisfied that she had done what she could. She pulled the power back, channelling some of it back into the ground but keeping at least half of it in her, feeling her back relax as she considered her job well done.

But of course, some people were never satisfied.

"Just cause we've got a visitor, doesn't mean you have to go about being dramatic, you know, girl," one woman spat, glaring at Andy when she turned around.

"Aye, what were you doing with him all night anyway, he got a taste for freaks?" a grubby teenage boy jeered, his cronies giving a hearty laugh at his words. Andy knew better than to snap at their words, it only encouraged them. But after a rather tumultuous morning, and some unwelcome revelations, she wasn't in the mood for them either. Her headache was coming back, and her pinkie finger was stinging again.

"You should be here as soon as the sun is up, girl. Let's see you do a full day's honest living for once," an elderly man sneered at her, "In my day, girls never had weird abilities, just did the washing and cleaning…"

"And you wonder why you never married," Andy snapped, glaring at the cranky misogynist, "I guess I was never cut out for the boring kind of life then, was I? Lucky me, never having to worry about cooking and clearing up after some idiot…"

"You'd be lucky, you little bitch," the old man spat back at her, outraged by her derogatory words to him, "As if any self-respecting man would go within a mile of you." He got another laugh from the teenage boys for that. Andy felt her top lip curl up, as if she were about to growl at them,

"Would you rather I wasn't about, so all you fucking useless idiots could get squashed and your homes destroyed by the rock falls? Cause I can leave any time you want me to. Just say when and I'll take off." The boys chuckled and the ring leader spoke up,

"Like you'd ever leave Old Matros. Still seeking Daddy's approval, eh?"

"He's not my father, you fucking imbecile. And I already sleep in the woods rather than his hovel, all I need to do is move further away." But the words did hit a sensitive area. Matros was her guardian, if anyone was supposed to approve of her, it was him. Even after everything he had and hadn't done for her, she still found herself seeking some kind of assurance that she was doing something good. She knew it wasn't going to happen but the tiny bit of hope she held was addictive. If only she could find the source of the rock falls, she could stop them happening forever. Then, surely, someone would appreciate her. Wanting, suddenly, to be as far away from everyone as she could get, she sought out the Doctor.

After Andy had sorted the rocks, the Doctor ducked into the TARDIS, feeling a little guilty for leaving her to the mercy of the townspeople, but his curiosity had to be satisfied. Typing in 'Gorant' to the TARDIS's matrix, he took a look at the readings she gave him. Sure enough, everything Andy had told him was true. Her percentages were damn near perfect. The TARDIS also noted that Gorant was indeed a very backwater planet, in a particularly backwater galaxy. Nothing exciting happening around about, at all. Except for one extraordinary girl. Hesitantly, he typed her appearance and powers into the matrix and waited anxiously to see what would come up. Something pinged. Almost afraid of what he would see, the Doctor looked at the screen. A sigh of relief and disappointment left his lips. 'UNKNOWN SPECIES' was flashing on the TARDIS console. She was still a mystery, as were any others like her in the universe. The Doctor wasn't really sure how to take this information. It was a relief, most definitely, that the universe wasn't crawling with her kind, that much deadly power in one place could be catastrophic. But at the same time, it would have been fascinating to study her people, perhaps their planet, to see how they had adapted to it. But there was nothing. He wondered what had happened to her society. Perhaps someone had used that power in the way he feared Andy would, once she realised just how far she could use it, and destroyed their own planet. He shivered at the thought of one person containing so much power, then turned his thoughts to the one person he knew could do such a thing. He had left her at the mercy of the townspeople long enough. Pushing his admittedly rather morbid thoughts to the back of his mind, he walked briskly out to find Andy, and nearly ran into her outside the TARDIS.

"Oh, hello," he said, hurriedly shutting the door so she didn't see the interior, "Good one today. Although, do you have to let them drop so low? You might lose control and they'll fall on you."

"I've never lost control." she said, in an almost dream like voice. She was standing staring at the TARDIS, in fact transfixed by it. Her eyes had darkened again, and that disconcertingly hungry look was back in them. She had one hand outstretched towards the blue wood of the TARDIS. Alarms immediately began to go off in the Doctor's mind. Something wasn't completely one hundred percent right with Andy, and having her touching even the wooden exterior of the TARDIS would not be a good idea. He quickly cast around for a topic, trying to get her focus off the TARDIS.

"Had enough of the villagers then?" The hand that was slowly extending paused.

"I've had enough of their shit to last a lifetime," she snarled, her eyes seemed to darken even more, "I can't wait to get off of this rock and as far away from all of those idiots as I can." As she said this, her eyes returned to the TARDIS and the Doctor could almost feel the hunger in them. He was, in that moment, just a little terrified of the girl in front of him. Frantically he sought for a topic that would bring Andy back,

"I looked on the matrix and you were right about those percentages, right down to the nitty gritty," this failed to have the desired effect, she only nodded, "I also looked up you and yours." He tried again. This seemed to work. Her hand stopped an inch from the surface of the TARDIS and she looked at him,

"Well?" she asked, not unkindly, the black seeming to recede from her eyes. Happy with this reaction, the Doctor informed her that there was no information about her anywhere. She closed her eyes as she accepted this news, and when they opened they were green again. The Doctor inwardly sighed in relief.

"So what now then?" he asked, in an attempt at joviality. Andy sighed and rubbed her head,

"I think I'll go back to the woods and try and get rid of this headache. It's been bothering me all morning."

"Right, good, you go and rest and I'll check out your town. There's some things of interest I'd like to look at." At his words Andy looked up in astonishment,

"You've found something interesting in Frecondra! My gods you must be bored." The Doctor laughed and ushered her off into the woods. When he was sure she'd gone, he turned towards the village and straightened his bow tie. Time to see what was really going on here.


	8. Chapter 8

**You know what, what the heck. It's Christmas, so here's the rest...**

He headed towards the market place. The stalls were still set up from yesterday, but the denizens were about as enthusiastic as if they were walking to the gallows. The sky was a horrible grey, overcast with a slight hint of rain. The Doctor looked around the little town with ill-concealed frustration. If it hadn't been for Andy, and the mystery she presented him with, he would have been out of here and flying off among the stars in seconds. But there was a mystery here, even in this grey unassuming place, and so he had to do his utmost to figure it all out.

He went back to the stall he had briefly stopped at before, looking around for someone to talk to. He spotted Merrick standing by the stall on his right. He considered the boy, and how much use he would get from any knowledge Merrick offered. As Andy had said, she was a pariah here, and the children of the town would be told to steer well clear of her. Yet, children were remarkably intelligent, and often picked up on the little subtleties that parents often missed. With that in mind, he glanced around, checking that his parents weren't around and called to Merrick. The boy looked up in surprise, and then a little smile crossed his face,

"Good morning, Mr Doctor. Would you like to buy something?"

"I told you before, Doctor is fine, Merrick," he said, walking over to the stall. Small fluffy balls, of different sizes and shapes, filled small baskets placed all over the stall. Leaning down and picking a small green one up, he sniffed it. It appeared to be some kind of fruit, as it had a tangy smell to it.

"That one's three kuras, Doctor," Merrick cheerfully informed him, "Why is it only Doctor then? Don't you have another name?" The Doctor smiled at the boy's inquisitive nature. He had made the right decision coming to talk to him.

"Yes I do, but it's secret," he smiled as he put the fruit back down, "I don't think I'll buy this one, Merrick, but I do have some questions I'd like to ask you."

"But you've touched it, Doctor!" The boy exclaimed, "I can't sell that one, now that you've touched it." The Doctor smiled at the boy's already well formed selling instincts.

"Alright, I'll buy three of these if you tell me what you know."

"Of course, Doctor," Merrick reached underneath the stall and pulled out a small bag, picking up three of the little furry green fruits, "What do you want to know?"

"It's about the girl, the one you said was an outcast, Andy." By the time he had reached the word 'outcast' Merrick's face had closed down. He frowned at the paper bag, as he stuck a little plaster over the fold to stop it opening. The Doctor waited, knowing that Merrick was most likely worried he would say something that his mother would give him into trouble for later.

"I'm not supposed to talk to her. Mummy says she's devil-possessed. That she talks with evil spirits in the woods and they'll come and eat me if I'm bad. She lives in a hole under the ground like an animal, but the devil keeps her warm at night. Daddy said that she probably in…entick…entices the evil spirits to come to her by dancing in the forests…" here he looked around and then leaned in to the Doctor, to whisper, "without her clothes on," he straightened and placed the bag on the stall, his face a little red, "but I don't think she does, because why would evil spirits want to look at a girl," and here he almost stuck out his tongue.

The Doctor, who had gone rigid with anger, would have laughed at this, as he suddenly realised that Merrick was still at that age where girls were avoided, because they weren't fast enough, or strong enough, or in fact simply because they were girls. But he was still processing everything that Merrick had said. Finally he said,

"Is that what your parents say, Merrick?" The boy nodded, looking around nervously for his mother, before continuing,

"After the rock falls Daddy always mutters something, and then goes in the house to make an offering to the nice spirits. He says he's trying to ward her away. Mummy carves wooden figures when the snow comes; she gives them horrible mouths and scary eyes. She says that keeps the devil girl away from our house." The Doctor, still angry at these people's backwards ways of dealing with Andy, decided to take a different point of view,

"What do you think about her, Merrick?" hoping for that childish point of view that saw everything in black and white. Merrick was silent for a few minutes, apparently giving it a good deal of thought,

"She's scary," he finally said, "She can lift rocks and none of the rest of us can do that. She always knows when the crops are going to fail, or where one of the cows has gone when it's escaped, and nobody should know that. She's always angry when she's here, and she always shouts at everybody. I don't think she likes us." _Can you blame her_, the Doctor thought, _all she ever does is help you and you carve scary faces in wood to keep her away. _

"But Merrick, she's all alone as well. She doesn't have a family. She doesn't have any friends. She's very lonely and sad, really." Merrick bit his lip, apparently he'd never thought of it that way before. The Doctor waited a few more minutes, then Merrick said,

"She does look sad sometimes, I suppose. But she could be a bit nicer. Then people would talk to her more." _No they wouldn't. They'd still jeer and hate her, only more so if she opened herself up to it_. Instead of the point of view he'd wanted, he'd gotten a childish solution. Nevertheless he thanked Merrick for the fruit, paid for them and began to turn away. Then he remembered something Andy had said and turned back,

"By the way, do you know where I could find Matros?"

"Of course, Doctor, his house is the small dirty one on the left path, near the trees," and with a final smile, Merrick turned back to his stall.

He may not have the answers he wanted yet, but it was a start, so the Doctor turned and began walking further into the village.


	9. Chapter 9

Looking around, he saw several more stalls, all covered in items, which to the Doctor appeared completely useless. Since he was sure that the people would be just as clever as Merrick and offer him objects in exchange for information, he decided to look around for an alternative source. His eyes landed on the well, around which a large group of people stood, all taking their turns to draw water. It appeared to be mostly women in the queue, and the Doctor was sure he could charm a few into telling him a few things. Fixing a winning smile to his face, he started towards the beginning of the queue.

Setting down his package on the ground beside the well, he looked towards one of the younger women and flashed her a smile. Her face remained stoic but her eyes betrayed her interest. She was a sturdy girl, with broad shoulders and a rather large bosom. Standing up straight, so that her hair caught the light, she placed a hand on her hip and said,

"Well, what do you want, stranger?" Encouraged by this the Doctor smoothed his hair and said,

"Well, I was just wondering if I could ask you a few things about this place, since I'm new here." He supposed being a traveller in these parts was about as exotic as some people got in their whole lives. He would make the most of this. The interest dimmed in her eyes, apparently she was looking for a better offer than conversation, but it didn't stop her coming around the well to talk to him.

"Go on then," she said, putting her full bucket on the ground, making the water slosh a little, "What do you want to know?" He considered how to delicately phrase his questions, so as not to drive her off.

"Well, um, the mountain?" She raised an eyebrow, clearly not impressed by this beginning,

"What about it?" she asked.

"Um, are the rock falls a common thing? Only it seems stupid to keep so many people living near such a volatile area." Still unimpressed, the girl blew some wisps of hair out of her eyes,

"Oh yeah, happen at least four times a week. Keeps that little bitch on her toes anyway," her voice turned bitter towards the end of her sentence, "But since the rocks never get close to the town, we've got no reason to move."

"Four times a week? That is rather a lot. Have there always been rock falls in this area then?" The Doctor continued, trying to ignore his growing anger at the people's displeasure for Andy.

"My mother says there weren't any when she was a child. They only started not that long ago," she leaned into him here, "I reckon it was a curse. That scrawny bitch turns up here and suddenly she's finally got something useful to be doing, even if it puts us honest folk in danger." Still supressing his anger, the Doctor replied,

"So the rock falls started when Andy arrived?"

"No, when she got here, she was a tiny baby. Old Matros came into town one day, carrying a baby cot and settled down here. Still remember that day, myself. Was about five years old. I see this old man, trudging through the town, with this little cot in his hand and little gurgles coming out from it. Everyone loved her at first, even helped Matros put up his house. Everyone assumed she was his daughter, but when she started doing her freaky stuff, well, we figured she was no daughter of his."

"So people weren't afraid of her at first?" The Doctor was surprised at this, the way Andy told it, it seemed the people had always hated her.

"Well, no. She was ordinary at first. Well, I suppose there was always something wrong with her. She used to play in the woods all day and came back telling these stupid stories about how she talked to trees or some shit like that. Everybody laughed at her, thought she was a bit loony. Then she wouldn't go anywhere near the Mayor's house. She just stopped going in. Always burst into tears any time she had to," The Doctor grimaced as he remembered the events that had made Andy so terrified of that house, "Then the really weird stuff started happening. A couple of the cows got out and everyone was frantic looking for them. Then she walks out of the trees holding them by the legs. Said she'd found them wandering down to the stream, cause the pool in the field was getting low," here a malignant smile twisted the girl's face, "She got a hiding that night, the like I've never seen. Ran away that night and stayed in the woods. Eventually came back, grubby and crying."

"Why did she get beaten for helping?" the Doctor was so angry he was nearly snarling, but he kept his composure around her, "Surely she was helping you."

"Them cows were going for slaughter, we could've lost good meat if she'd let them go!"

"But she didn't. She brought them back."

"Yeah, well she took too long about it. And besides, she'd done something to them as well. They were all calm like, they just wandered after her, like she'd hypnotised them or something. And then she started scaring people too. She always knew if the crops were going to fail, or if the flower beds needed more water, or where a wandering kid had gone. That's not right. I personally thought she was some kind of witch. The kids started getting afraid of her. But it all came to a head one summer, nearly ten years ago now.

My little sister and her friends were playing hide and seek, and for some reason they let her play. Well, she runs off, and they look for her, must have been for hours, but they couldn't find her. Eventually she comes back at night, all scraped up and crying, saying her pinkie finger hurts. Matros bandaged it up and told her to not go running off anywhere again. She said that she was afraid. That there was something out there that had called to her. And it might be coming for her," as she said this, the girl put her right hand to her left shoulder and then seemed to brush off her shoulder. The Doctor took this as a superstitious tick, something to make bad luck go away. Intrigued now, he asked,

"What sort of thing?" She stared at him in horror,

"Something we never mention. Don't even write its name. It comes and finds you no matter where you are." And with that she picked up her bucket and began walking away quickly.

"Wait," he called. She looked back over her shoulder, "You never told me, when did the rock-falls start?" Looking puzzled as to why he wanted to know this, she answered,

"About nine or ten years ago," and then bustled off without a backwards glance.

The Doctor considered this new information. It definitely corresponded with Andy's estimate that she had been out in the woods now for nearly nine years. He'd have to ask her what happened during that summer. Now that he thought about it, he remembered that she made a passing remark about it, _'does being asked to play hide-and-seek once count?'_ So had something happened to Andy? And then shortly afterwards, the rock-falls began? The Doctor had travelled to more places and times than he cared to mention but in all that time he had come to firmly believe that there was no such thing as coincidence.


	10. Chapter 10

As he turned over everything he'd learned in his head, his feet began leading him off in a random direction. He wasn't looking where he was going, too caught up in his thoughts, so it came as a surprise when he walked into someone.

"Oh, I'm so sorry madam, wasn't…" A sudden crack filled the air where a hand landed on his cheek, "Ouch!" he shrieked (manly, of course), and reflexively brought his left hand up to his stinging cheek.

"What the hell have you been asking my Merrick?" the woman shouted. Suddenly he remembered her face, the mother from the stall who had glared at him like a mother bear whose cub was being threatened.

"I…I was just curious," he said, trying to defend himself.

"Curious about the devil girl! Why would anyone be interested in that freak?"

"She is not a freak," all the built-up anger he had repressed finally burst, "All she's ever done is help you, saved you. Do you know how many times she's wanted to run away, leave you to your miserable lives? But she didn't, because she believes it's her duty to protect you, and your children," he paused; the scene had gathered quite a crowd. Everyone was staring, "You moan about her, say she isn't one of you, but she still tries to protect you when no one else could. So this…this hatred, this loathing, this superstitious nonsense," here he glared pointedly at the woman in front of him, "Stops now."

Silence filled the square, as everyone was sent, hopefully, reeling by these new discoveries. But then the spell broke when Merrick's mother began to sneer and said,

"She must have done a number on you. How many spirits did she have to summon up to get you to say all that?"

"See, that," the Doctor said, pointing at her, "It's that kind of thinking that makes me so angry…"

"She's possessed, by the blackest devil that's ever existed." Merrick's mother shrieked and then, almost as one, the village lifted their right hands to their left shoulders and appeared to brush something off. The Doctor stared around at them all and suddenly wondered if, just perhaps, there wasn't some truth to their words.

"What's possessed her?" he asked at random, though directing his words to the woman in front of him. She made the sign again, "Come on, tell me what is it?" She continued making the sign.

"Something we leave well enough alone, as she should have done," turning the Doctor saw it was an old man who had spoken, "Stupid little girl had no idea what she was doing, but even a five year old knows you don't follow whispering voices."

"The game of hide-and-seek, where she said she followed a voice, the voice is what possessed her?" trying hard not to think back to the planet Midnight, and the woman who had been possessed by a mimicking alien.

"What made the voice, that's what possessed her," the man said, again making the sign, and everyone around him copying.

"What does it do? This thing that possesses?" This time, his words were followed by a hiss.

"You really don't want to live, do you?" Merrick's mother said, "You don't play games with this thing, once it's got you, it never lets you go." Shocked at this new revelation, he said,

"So…if Andy is possessed, she'll die with that thing in her?" Merrick's mother scoffed,

"Not before it's driven her insane first," and then she smiled, as if this was an amusing thought. The anger that had died down slightly flared back in the Doctor's veins,

"Then she doesn't deserve that. After everything she has done for you…"

"What she's done is show off her witchy powers," Merrick's mother retorted, and several people behind her nodded, "She was always wrong, that child, never could play properly, always knew things that it wasn't possible to know, the little freak, she probably called it, asked it to come to her."

"What are you talking about?" The Doctor snarled.

"To name it is to call it," she said, and the entire town seemed to shiver simultaneously, "every child is told the story at least once in their childhood, of the name they never speak, or it comes to them and takes their soul in the night, and they're left, mad and empty and outcast," Even although he didn't quite believe everything she was telling him, the Doctor also couldn't hold back a shiver, "I reckon the power wasn't enough for her, she had to have more. So that day, she went out and spoke the name and called it to her. And she's been possessed ever since, sending the rock falls to us so that she can pretend to be the hero, all the while knowing that she created them."

The Doctor didn't know what to think, didn't know what to say. He desperately wanted to defend Andy, but this…thing, this bogeyman, the monster under the bed, sounded very intriguing. And he had noticed that perhaps Andy wasn't quite all there. Not that she was mad or something, just that perhaps she wasn't in fact one hundred percent Andy. It had felt like there was something else in there with her. Something that was trying to break its way through.

"What are the signs of it?" he wanted to know. The mother smirked, seemingly proud that she had brought him round to their way of seeing things,

"Madness, anger, violence. It makes you evil. And that's all she is," instead of a sign this time the woman spat, "Pure evil."

Sighing at her words, thinking he probably wouldn't get a true answer from her, he turned towards someone else. But before he could say anything, a voice rang out from the back of the crowd,

"What are you all doing standing around here?" Everybody turned to look. The man in the fur coat, the Mayor, was standing by the well with his hands on his hips. The women suddenly looked ashamed, and scuffed their feet, while the men simply looked away, not meeting his gaze, "Do you not realise that harvest starts soon? That it's nearly time for the milking? And I'm sure there are kids in the houses feeling a little hungry, right?" There was a small murmur of agreement from the women in the crowd, "Well then, you'd better get to it then." And just like that, the crowd began to disperse. Merrick's mother shot the Doctor one last look of contempt and said,

"You're as mad as she is, if you try to go looking for that thing." She made the sign to ward off evil and then turned towards her house. The Doctor turned away from her and found himself looking at the Mayor's chin. Startled back a little and looking up to see an expression of frustration and weariness he heard the Mayor say,

"And you, good sir, are coming with me."


	11. Chapter 11

Usually, when being escorted by people of authority, the Doctor would make a show of being completely at ease. He was a Time Lord, nothing in the universe scared him, in fact most of the universe was terrified of him, and that usually gave him immunity to otherwise intimidating people. But today he was so wrapped up in the mystery that was Andy, he barely gave indication that he was watching where the Mayor was taking him. So when there was the sound of a door closing behind him, he looked up in surprise. He was standing in a hall, with a slightly raised dais at the far end and a table near the door that was piled with pieces of leafy looking paper. To the right he saw a door slightly ajar that seemed to lead to a bedroom. He surmised that he was in the Mayor's house, then shivered as he looked towards the stone wall, wondering which one Andy had touched which showed her the chilling vision of the old Mayor's death.

"We don't get a lot of visitors, you know," he turned towards the Mayor, who had seated himself at the desk, "Gorant is a tiny planet in a large galaxy, and very few are tempted by our world. Why are you here?"

"Oh, you know, just passing through," shaken by what Andy had told him of the house, he felt as if the walls were watching him. It was not a pleasant feeling.

"Indeed? My farmers have alerted me to the fact that there is a strange box near the eastern fields, which didn't appear to be there yesterday." The Mayor's voice sharpened slightly, while the Doctor cursed himself. He must have lifted the chameleon circuit earlier that day, while Andy was fending off the villagers, and forgot to put it on again when he left. Oh, well, make the most of it.

"Yup, that's my ship. I know she doesn't look like much but she's surprisingly roomy." He didn't know why he wasn't taking control of the conversation, relaxing, being the one who asked the questions. But between the information about Andy, and the way the walls seemed to be looking at him, he was just a little uncomfortable.

"I see. And what would a man like you want on Gorant?" The Mayor's voice was dripping with scepticism.

"Excitement," the Doctor snapped back, finally breaking out of his tension, "To be astounded by how singularly stupid your people are and witness the horrible things they do a teenage girl who just tries to help." The Mayor was suddenly on his feet.

"You think it was an easy decision? She had been doing things for a long time, unnatural things, and some even asked that she be burned or killed. I came up with what seemed to be the best solution. She was perfectly placed to be called on when we needed her but it kept her safe from the villagers and their spite." The Doctor weighed up what he had just heard, but then saw a slight glimmer of malice in his eyes.

"No," he said, anger again building, "She was doing wonderful things, incredible things, which helped your farmers care for their crops in the best ways, and kept the village children safe from wandering off. But then she came back one day and could suddenly do even more incredible things, but instead of filling everyone with wonder, it terrified them. So you built her a place, just close enough, so that she could come when she was called, like a good dog, but otherwise out of sight, out of mind. Am I right?" He was almost snarling by the time he was finished. The Mayor had sat back down, and perhaps it was a trick of the light, but he seemed to have paled in the face of the Doctor's ire.

"What was I supposed to do?" he muttered, "They were out for blood, ready to tear Old Matros' place apart just to get their hands on her. She was the best asset this town has ever had. Our profits have tripled in the last year, with her instruction on how to care for the plants. I wasn't about to let her be killed because of some superstition. So, I needed her out of the way…"

"And that's what happened." The Mayor seemed to deflate in the face of this.

"What do you want?" he asked again.

"To understand," the Doctor replied, now glad to be back in control, "What is this thing they were talking about? This voice that possesses people and makes them evil." The Mayor sighed; seemingly wishing the Doctor had asked any question but that,

"It's a sort of spirit, or entity. It's said to have existed since the dawn of time, and it embodies everything evil about people. Their hate, anger, violence, madness; it's said to feed on these things, and it eventually turns its host insane."

"Host? So, it's like a parasite?"

"In a way. It has to get inside the blood stream, but it's said that a drop of blood is all it takes and then it's inside you. Once it is, it begins to turn you into everything that is evil in this world. It brings out the worst in people and eventually…"

"Drives them insane," the Doctor finished, thinking quickly, "Since the dawn of time? Really? I would have thought there'd be more myths about it,"

"It is only said to have come from the dawn of time. Who knows how old it really is?"

"You believe in it then?"

"Did you not see the demonstration outside? Everyone on this planet believes it."

"So essentially it's your version of the monster under the bed," the Doctor said, wondering if the line between fact and stories had blurred in these people's minds.

"But a very real monster," the Mayor countered sharply, "Four generations ago, a man wandered off and got lost in the night. When he returned he was barely recognisable. He wore the skins of wild animals, and had bloody and broken teeth where he had eaten the flesh and bones raw. His eyes were crazed and black as pitch, and he…"

"Wait, wait, black eyes, are you sure?" Remembering Andy's changing eye colour, he was suddenly afraid that this horror story had a grain of truth in it.

"Yes, that is how the story was always told, although it was said that until the day he set out, he had blue eyes. He went insane and killed his own family, his wife and mother, before his father finally killed him. And when they buried him, it was said that his eyes had returned to the proper colour, which meant that _it_ had left him, and was stalking the country around the town. And that is why we do not let our children wander far, lest they be seduced by this monster and welcome it into their body."

An empty silence followed the words of this story. The Doctor supposed it was still a ghost story to terrify children, but as he went through the list of 'symptoms' for this creature, he had to admit that Andy displayed some signs of it. Eyes ranging from green to black, sudden anger flaring up out of nowhere, bitterness and resentment towards the townspeople (though he could hardly fault her for that), that hungry look in her eyes that never failed to send shivers down his back.

Could she be possessed? By this creature? And what if she was? She had said that the events that led to her ostracism had happened nine years ago. Nine years of living with this creature inside her, was it possible her mind had survived that? The man in the story had barely lasted a day. But Andy was special, in a way none of these people were. Could that have given her some immunity? Then he realised that he didn't even have a name for this…parasite.

"Doesn't it have a name?" The Mayor stiffened almost immediately,

"It is never spoken of, for to name it is to call it. I will not bring it here." With that he stood and went towards his bedroom.

"Please, I just need to know what it's called. How can you fight something if you don't even know its name?" The Mayor paused.

"You would fight it?" he asked, "You would rid us of this evil?" Could he? Could he fight something that was possibly even older than him? Could he fight Andy, whose body apparently hosted it? But he needed to know the name, so after a short pause he said,

"Yes." The Mayor stared at him for a few seconds and then turned back to the table. He pulled a thin sheet of paper towards him and wrote faintly on it. Then he quickly thrust it at the Doctor and all but ran into his room. Before he closed the door he called back,

"Please do not continue to interrogate the people of my town. What you have there should satisfy any curiosity that you have." And then he shut the door.

The Doctor was left holding a sheet of paper that contained three words and a drawing. The words were just ordinary words, but put in that particular sequence they chilled his blood. As did the drawing, although if you broke it down into single elements there was nothing scary about it. But together the three serrated horns, which almost looked like teeth, the tail that came out from the horns and curved to a point in an anti-clockwise circle, and the one staring eye that was just beneath the horns, on the start of the tail and staring right at him, it was one of the creepiest things he'd ever seen, and he'd seen vampire fish and weeping angels.

This thing was inside Andy! Supposedly. He'd seen the evidence but he hadn't seen it yet. And to name it was to call it. He looked down at the words printed on the sheet, wondering if he dared to say them aloud. But decided against it. There would be a time when it needed to be called but that wasn't now. What needed to be done at the moment was research. So he put the paper in his pocket and headed outside to the TARDIS.


	12. Chapter 12

As he walked through the square he saw that it was mostly empty. The people had obviously taken the chastisement of their Mayor to heart and gone about their business, none of them even looking up to watch him pass. As he walked past Merrick's stall, the small boy looked up in surprise and then looked away just as quickly. He was sporting a large bruise on his face. Apparently his mother was physical with her punishments. A little guilt that he had caused that bruise washed over him, but he quickly set his thoughts on the TARDIS. He had to find out what was going on, what was happening to Andy, if anything. But as he approached the TARDIS he noticed something was wrong.

The creeper vines, which had been about two or three metres away from the TARDIS that morning when he had entered, were now close enough to touch the base. In fact one of them was, and in the early afternoon light he thought he could see it was pulsing a little. Horror rushed through him as he opened the TARDIS door and ran to the console. What were these vines doing? What was Andy doing sending them to the TARDIS? It had to be her, he could think of no one else who could do something like this. However looking over the TARDIS, the vines were doing nothing. They were simply swarming around her, looking eerily like a group of soldiers moving in for the kill. But they weren't doing anything. Not draining her of power, energy, life, anything. She was safe. At the moment.

Were they a threat? Could Andy pull power from the TARDIS using these vines? Would she? And was it really Andy? Or was it the parasite that was doing this?

Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen Andy since early that morning. She'd gone back to the woods to try and get rid of her headache. Had the parasite caused the headache? How would she try to get rid of it? Would she try to go to sleep again? He didn't know enough, he didn't understand and he hated not understanding. So he did what he had come here to do. He typed in the three words on the paper into the matrix and tried to ignore the vines at his door.

Half an hour later, the Doctor exited. The TARDIS didn't have much information on the parasite and had been loath to give it up. Not out of stubbornness, or because she had trouble finding it. No, the Doctor had sensed fear through his slight telepathic link with the TARDIS. Even she was afraid of the parasite. Remembering what happened the last time something had taken her over, he wasn't surprised. He had learned very little more than he knew already, as the parasite was only recorded in myths, and he always took those with a pinch of salt. As he closed the door he looked at the progress of the vines. They were all now touching it, but they hadn't grown up the side of it or anything. It looked like they were just…waiting. But for what? Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he turned back towards the town. There was still one more person he wanted to see, the so-called guardian, Matros.

'_his house is the small dirty one on the left path, near the trees_' Remembering Merrick's words of describing Andy's former house, the Doctor couldn't help but think that Merrick had got it spot on. It was indeed tiny, the TARDIS in her police box form could not have gotten through the door. The thatch on the roof looked worn and a little patched, and the walls had dirt and what looked like excrement all over them. What windows there were, were grimy and crusted with specks of dirt. A trickle of smoke fluttered out of the broken chimney on the top of the roof.

But it was also very close to the woods and, thinking back to what he'd heard about Andy's childhood, he suddenly wasn't surprised that she had spent almost all of her days in the woods. They were quite obviously separated from the village too, the nearest house was at least fifteen metres away. In a city that wouldn't have seemed much, but in this tiny town, it seemed like a very obvious split between 'them' and 'us'. Perhaps it was because Matros wasn't a local, even after all these years, or maybe just because he was associated with Andy that he had chosen to separate himself from the rest of the village.

Pushing these thoughts aside the Doctor walked up and tapped on the door. There was a snuffling sound, then a thump and then footsteps, slow and heavy, heading towards the door. A creak and then the door was ajar. A strong sour smell of unwashed clothes, body odour and what probably passed for alcohol on this planet wafted out of the house. A sallow face looked out, wild tangled hair hung in almost dreadlocks down his face, a long black beard covered his chin and weasely bloodshot blue eyes looked out, sharp and alert and wary. The Doctor took in his appearance and recognised him as the man from yesterday, who had bowed his head and shuffled away when Andy had looked at him.

"What do you want, stranger?" his voice was gruff and hoarse.

"Matros? Andy's guardian?" The Doctor asked, trying not to hold his breath. The rodent eyes tightened for a second and then he sighed.

"What's she done now?" he demanded sullenly.

"Nothing," the Doctor quickly reassured him, "I'm just interested in what happened to her, that's all." The eyes looked at him warily,

"Why do you wanna know that? What's the girl matter to you?" The Doctor's voice hardened,

"Well someone should care, shouldn't they?" Matros glared out at him, then the fight seemed to leave his eyes. His head sunk down and he opened the door wider.

"You'd better come in," he grunted.


	13. Chapter 13

The inside was little better than the external appearance. There was a small fire and grimy table beside it, on which rested a hunk of meat which oozed blood, some of which was dripping onto the ground. A pile of rags in the corner seemed to indicate a bed of some sort, and surrounding it were several bottles, some of which were half full, the brown glass twinkling in the low light the fire gave off. A couple of slightly broken looking chairs were placed beside the table. At Matros' insistence, the Doctor took the one closest to the fire. Matros swung towards his bed and picked up one of the bottles which still had drink in it. The liquid sloshed languidly around as he pulled the cork out with his teeth, then offered the bottle to the Doctor. Curious, but not wanting to actually drink any, he took a sniff. His eyes began to water as the smell of stale cherries and rotten strawberries wafted out. Choking back a cough, he shook his head and handed the bottle back to Matros, who took a swig,

"So, what do you wanna know?"

The Doctor thought. He hadn't decided exactly what to question Matros on; Andy's past, where she had come from or this supposed parasite. He decided to try for her past first,

"I hear you were the one who brought Andy here. How did you find her?" At this Matros gave a snort. The Doctor's brow furrowed, wondering what he had said to bring out such a reaction.

"Didn't find her," taking another swig, Matros' eyes seemed to glaze slightly, as if he were remembering, "Had her thrust at me and told to watch over her. Keep her safe, protect her." Returning to the present, and obviously seeing the glare in the Doctor's eyes, Matros took yet another drink.

"Yes, well, you did that well, didn't you," the Doctor snarled. Matros glared back,

"I tried, alright. I did. She was normal at first. That I could handle. She pretty much looked after herself anyway. But then the freaky stuff started and I…she wasn't sleeping naturally and she…I didn't know what to do. Just kept telling her not to be so obvious with it. I'd already been chucked off one planet. Didn't want to be chucked off another."

"What did you do?" the Doctor asked, now seeing the drinking for something other than normal alcoholism. Matros seemed to be drinking to try and forget.

"Didn't do anything. Damn government. We were supposed to put all our business ledgers out, make all our transactions known. Well, there were a few things I'd rather the government didn't know, so I scarpered before my ledgers saw the light of day. Got on this ship, seemed to be full of people heading away from trouble. Anyway, we fly into an asteroid field and the shields fall down. Ship starts breaking up, everybody's panicking. I find a shuttle all to myself and try to take off, but this woman stops me. She puts this baby carrier in with me and tells me to guard her with my life," he took another drink, "Then she slaps me, good and hard, right across the face and tells me that I deserve it," the Doctor smirks at that, doesn't even try to hide it. Matros grimaces, "Anyway, she sets the coordinates and then off we go. Me and this little gurgling cot. I open it, and there's this tiny little thing, all tucked up, like nothing in the world can hurt her. And then her eyes open. And these big green eyes are staring at me and asking me for things I can't give and I just know, I know, that I'm gonna do what the woman asked. I'm gonna, cause I can't look away from that face." Matros sighed. The Doctor was startled at the true emotion that came out of Matros' mouth. He had cared for Andy, even if it was only the baby version of her. And still cared enough to be ashamed of what he hadn't done, as he recalled the scene from yesterday.

"You didn't do enough," he stated. Matros looked up, anger in his eyes,

"You think it was easy? They were coming, baying for blood, they wanted the witch burned, they said. I did what I could, told her to run into the woods, to keep away from them. Then the Mayor comes, says he's got a plan that can benefit everyone. So I listen, and I don't like it, but it's better than her being burnt to a crisp and I let them take her, even as I hear her screaming for me to help." At this last part Matros tipped the bottle up and drained the rest of it. The Doctor sat in stunned silence.

"You did try, didn't you?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. I still hear her screaming as they drag her away. She hates me now. Never forgave me for that."

"Nor will she," Matros glared at him again, his eyes bleary from the alcohol, then he sighed and put his head in his hands.

"I know."

They sat in silence like that for what felt like hours. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and Matros' heavy breathing. Finally the Doctor just had to know.

"What happened that summer day, nine years ago? What happened the night she came back from hide and seek?" Matros sighed,

"I don't know," sniffing he sat up straight, surreptitiously wiping one of his eyes, "I still don't truly know. The way she put it, some kids asked her to play, so she joins in. The other kids never really liked playing with her, thought she was too weird. But that day was warm and sunny and they just wanted to play. Anyway, the others go off to hide, but Andy stays hidden, or so they think, and they can't find her anywhere. Eventually, about sundown, she comes stumbling back, holding her left hand in her right. I walk out and see that her little finger is bleeding. She says she found a cave at the base of the mountain, thought it looked like a good hiding place, so, like any kid, she climbs in. Says she cut her finger on one of the sharp stones. Then there was a voice," Matros' shivered, "A voice that called to her, called her by name. She wondered if someone else had found the cave, so naturally she walks in, trying to find the friend. But she doesn't. All she sees is more and more…dark," again he shivered, and the Doctor had to stifle one of his own, "Eventually she says it was like the voice surrounded her and she shouted at it to stop. But it just kept coming closer. She says she put up her hand to stop it coming, and then the voice vanished. And she was alone and cold and when she found her way out it was getting late, so she just headed straight home, like the good girl she was." Matros sniffed to finish his story and tried to take another sip, before remembering that the bottle was empty. He looked towards the bed, but the Doctor didn't want to have to deal with a drunk,

"I think you've had enough for just now." Matros kept looking over at the bed, then seemed to decide that no, he couldn't be bothered getting up, so he put the empty bottle down on the table.

"She was a good kid," he mumbled, "Strange but she'd never hurt a fly. It shouldn't have found her. It shouldn't have taken her."

"The parasite? The monster under the bed?"

"Don't name it," Matros said quickly, his drink-brightened eyes wide, "Don't name it and call it here."

"So you think it has Andy? That it's inside her?" Bowing his head Matros muttered,

"Yes."

"And you still let them take her?" The Doctor almost spat in his anger. But Matros didn't answer, indeed he didn't have time. Another voice answered, one that was cold, with anger and hatred and loneliness,

"Of course he did. Why would he want to deal with me himself?" The Doctor looked up at the door in surprise. Andy stood there, a tear slowly making its way down her face, anger in her darkened haunted eyes. Matros stiffened and let out a squawk,

"Get it out of here, girl. Don't bring that demon in here!" Andy scoffed,

"Demon? There is no demon, no devil and no spirits. It's just me, Matros. It's always just been me." She was almost spitting in rage.

"No, there is, Andy," the Doctor quickly stepped in, "You'll have heard of it, Andy. Every child has. The monster under the bed. The thing that comes to take away your soul." Andy looked at him like he had gone insane,

"That's just a story," she said, backing away in fright. The Doctor followed.

"All stories have some truth, Andy. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but you've displayed some of the signs."

"No," she whimpered, stepping away, towards the village well. The people standing in line turned to look, seeing what entertainment the mad girl would offer up.

"The temper that changes in seconds, the eyes that change colour, even the blood that your nine year old self offered up. One drop of blood and it's inside you, Andy."

"No, no, it can't be." Andy was sobbing now, begging him to stop talking.

"There is one way to be sure." The Doctor hated that he had to do this. She stared up at him in horror, as did all those within earshot. There were some exclamations, begging the Doctor not to say it. He ignored them all.

"To name it is to call it," he said. Andy had fallen to her knees, tears slipping down her face. The people at the well all seemed to draw together, one crowd, one mob, against the evil they all feared, "And I name you…The Devouring Dark."


	14. Chapter 14

**For any Pratchett fans, you know where I got the idea of the Devouring Dark from. It's not a complete rip off (I hope) but it is similar enough that I felt the need to mention it. Anyway...duh duh duh...**

The effect was instantaneous. The women in the crowd all shrieked and made the sign to ward off evil. The men looked over their shoulders, ready to run as fast as possible. And Andy's hands fell to the earth in front of her, her back arched and she screamed and screamed and screamed.

The Doctor heard a noise behind him. Matros was standing there, his eyes wide in shock as he watched the girl he had sworn to protect writhe on the ground in pain. He looked up into the Doctor's face. The Doctor didn't like what he saw there.

"What have you done?" Matros spat at him. The Doctor couldn't think what to answer, but he didn't need to. A few seconds after Matros had spoken, Andy stopped screaming. The silence that followed was tense and fearful. But it was also full. Something was there. Something that hadn't been there before.

Andy was still on her hands and knees, but now she began to stand, her face still tipped towards the ground. The mob around the well backed away with every movement she made. Matros' breaths came quick and shuddering. And the Doctor, ever the fearless man, took a step closer,

"Andy?" he said, hoping beyond hope that he was wrong.

"_No_," the voice that hissed from Andy's mouth was nothing like Andy's. It was a harsh yet slithery sound, almost like a snake's voice, and it rang with the echo of ages and centuries long gone. Andy's head began to rise, drawing in breaths as though she had never breathed properly. Her irises, which had once been that mesmerising haunting green, were now empty and black as pitch, yet they glinted with an insatiable hunger. Her mouth twisted up into a hideous smile, an expression that should never have crossed Andy's face. It made her look evil and lawless, "_She's gone. It's only me now_." And the thing that was now Andy began to chuckle.

As the laughter rose, the spell of inertia broke. Women screamed and hurried away to their houses as quickly as possible. The men seemed torn of whether to follow or to stay and defend their homes. And the Doctor swallowed, a huge lump in his throat nearly choking him. But he had never let anything beat him before, he wasn't about to start now.

"So…you're real then." Hardly the best start, but it always helped to keep it simple. The entity smirked,

"_You were so blind. You didn't want to see the monster, did you, Doc-tor_," the way it dragged out his name made him shiver, "_You didn't want to believe that this innocent little girl could possibly house something like me inside her. Oh, she was so weak. The first time she came to me, she came almost willingly. Desperate for a friend, desperate to be found. She wanted to be noticed. She wanted…to be loved_." Here the entity sneered, "_So easy to tempt her. To tell her I would cherish her. I would help her to be noticed. All she had to do was welcome me._" It continued to smirk at the Doctor, seemingly waiting for something. But he'd already figured it out.

"You started the rock-falls, didn't you?" It gave a hissing laugh,

"_Oh, very good. I thought it might take you longer to figure it out. So simple. A little push there, a little suggestion here, she did it all on her own really. She wanted to be noticed. I gave her something for which she could be useful. She was certainly not ignored afterwards_."

"But she wasn't loved either." the Doctor snarled. The entity shrugged Andy's shoulders,

"_You can't get everything in life. You of all people know that, don't you, Time Lord_." And here it fixed him with a look of utter hunger. The Doctor was suddenly rooted to the spot in fear,

"You don't know anything about me," he said, trying to sound angry, while fighting bone chilling terror. The entity laughed, a high pitched laugh this time, making everybody who was still listening shiver,

"_You forget your stories, Doctor. The Time Lords may be old, but I am even older. Perhaps not quite as old as they say, but definitely older than you. And I have whispered into the hearts and minds of every one of my hosts, and learned their weaknesses and their pain. Of their poor little hearts, their loneliness, their loss, their betrayals. Such power for me, there is nothing quite like the taste of a diseased mind. They tell me their desires and I…_"

"Give them exactly what they don't need," the Doctor countered, "You use their pain, their weakness against them. You drive them insane." Again, the entity shrugged,

"_Then you shouldn't invite the monster to dinner, Doctor. And you definitely shouldn't have called me_." The smirk returned, in all its grotesque glory.

"Why? What can you possibly do to…?" And suddenly his eyes widened as everything suddenly made sense. The entity laughed again at his expression,

"_I have her power, Doctor. When I absorbed her mind, I absorbed her power. I can do everything she could, and more, because I do not fear the consequences. You know I have those vines around your ship. I'll suck her dry of power if you don't take me where I want to go_." Trying not shiver as he thought of all that power, all that life, inside this ages old darkness, he asked,

"What do you want?" A triumphant grin covered Andy's face, as grotesque as the smirk had been,

"_I want what she wanted, to get off this rock. I want what she wants, to travel the universe. Imagine it, Doctor. Every living person, from the beginning of time right to the very end. So many hosts. So many events that could have been changed, had people only the will to do it. So many civilisations that would never be formed because they would not survived, so weak were they. So many things I will change with each new host_," here she looked right into the Doctor's eyes, "_and you shall deliver me to each of them_."

It felt like a punch to the gut. He couldn't do this, he couldn't use the TARDIS, his Time Lord powers in this way. He couldn't deliver this ancient evil to all of the important places in history, just so that the time lines, and perhaps the laws of history could disintegrate. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

"I won't." The black eyes narrowed to slits. The mouth twisted up into a horrifying grimace,

"_If you will not help me, I will use her power to tear this planet to pieces. All of these people will die, even the innocents who don't even know what is happening here. Your TARDIS will be lost forever, floating endlessly in the vacuum of space. And you, the Last Time Lord, shall die on this pathetic rock, in cold blood, with no one to remember your name, or even erect a headstone for you_." The entity was nearly spitting in rage. The Doctor wanted so desperately to save the TARDIS, to save Merrick, even Matros, but he wouldn't do what the entity asked of him. He would rather die.

"No." He glared his defiance back at the creature. The entity bared its teeth,

"_So_…urgh," The Doctor stared in shock. The entity's body had jerked, as if someone invisible had just punched it in the gut. Now it was dry heaving and choking, as if it was about to be sick. Its eyes had opened wide in shock and, in the light of the dying sun, the Doctor could have sworn he saw a flash of green. Suddenly its knees buckled. It ended up on hands and knees, just as Andy had when it had…no. It had said…but of course an evil entity would never have lied, would it?

"Andy?"


	15. Chapter 15

**Again...duh duh duh**

Pain. Searing, blinding agony. Agony the like of which Andy had never felt before. As soon as those three words left the Doctor's mouth, Andy's vision blacked out. She could see nothing, she could feel nothing. It was like she was no longer in her own body. But she felt some kind of movement, something shifting inside, something that had been hidden for long enough, finally taking control, finally coming to the front.

'_The Doctor was right_,' she thought, '_It's in here.'_ She struggled, although she wasn't sure how. She could no longer feel a body to move, but she remembered having one and conjured it up in her mind's eye. Her thoughts seemed to be drifting away, no matter how hard she tried to keep them to her. She envisioned her mind and tried to trap them inside. She had to fight this thing.

"_Why?_" the slithery voice came out of everywhere, as if surrounded by it. Andy froze, either in her mind or in her pretend body, which she had been thrashing around with. She remembered that voice, the voice that had called her into the cave, saying it was lost and needed help, a voice she had hoped to never hear again.

"_Why?_" _It_ repeated, "_Why fight me? You are a tiny speck of dust compared to me. You are nothing, you cannot defeat me._"

"Because this is mine," she replied, shouting it into the darkness surrounding her, "This was mine, long before it was yours. Give it back." A chuckle came from the darkness surrounding her, but _it_ wasn't amused. She felt a rush of something, almost akin to being slapped across the face. It was obviously meant to shut her up, and indeed it did, as the voice and the movement that went with it slid past her.

She struggled, before she realised that her conjured body was now frozen, her mind barely thinking any thoughts. _It_ had paralysed her so that _it_ could take control.

"No!" she screamed in her mind. She pushed, trying to move her limbs, trying to do something. She lay in limbo for what seemed like eternity. She had to find something. Anything. Anything she had that _it_ didn't.

Instantly her mind reached out for her power. For that connection to something so much bigger than her.

And she found it.

She pulled it to her instantly, her mind grasping for something familiar, something that reminded her of herself. It was an intrinsic part of who she was, and nobody could take it from her. She let it flow through her, through the body she had conjured up, making her bones and blood sing, up into her mind which opened out just in time to hear _it_ say,

"_…__and you definitely shouldn't have called me,_" She paused her power, just in case _it_ had sensed what she was doing. _It _didn't appear to have noticed at all, too busy riding _its_ arrogance at having conquered her. Andy herself couldn't really see too well anyway, it was like looking though an opaque material. She could see the outlines, not the details. She saw the Doctor's mouth move, although she didn't quite have the control yet to hear what he said. But she saw his eyes widen in fear and horror, and knew that it was nothing good. She felt _it_ laugh, using her mouth. She tried to stop _it_ but she didn't want to risk letting _it_ know she wasn't completely paralysed. Then she felt _it_ use her mouth again,

"_I have her power, Doctor. When I absorbed her mind, I absorbed her power. I can do everything she could, and more, because I do not fear the consequences. You know I have those vines around your ship. I'll suck her dry of power if you don't take me where I want to go_."

"LIAR!" Andy shouted, suddenly uncaring if _it_ could hear her in here. She had not been absorbed, she had fought back with everything she could, but it still wasn't enough. But _it_ didn't have her power either, _it_ was…bluffing. _It_ wanted something. Something only the Doctor could give _it_. Then she heard _it_ say,

"_I want what she wanted, to get off this rock. I want what she wants, to travel the universe. Imagine it, Doctor. Every living person, from the beginning of time right to the very end. So many hosts. So many events that could have been changed, had people only the will to do it. So many civilisations that would never be formed because they would not survived, so weak were they. So many things I will change with each new host…and you shall deliver me to each of them_."

"NO!" Even if she wasn't a Time Lord, Andy understood that giving this ancient entity control over all of space and time would end in disaster. She had to fight it. She had to beat it. But how?

She began searching with her mind, casting out little lines, literally fishing for information. At first, nothing. _It_ seemed to be impenetrable. She began casting them quicker. And then, a chink, a tiny hole. Looking closer she felt the deceit. _It_ knew _it_ was lying, _it_ knew that she was here, _it _still needed her. Because without her, _it_ had no power. She began kicking at the chink with her conjured feet, hitting and punching with her conjured hands, trying to break down the opaque wall that separated her from her true body. She pushed herself into the chink, made it wider. And slowly, it began to open.

Suddenly she could breathe, properly breathe, with her own lungs again. She drew in a sharp breath, nearly making her body double over. She gritted her teeth and began to push her awareness down through her body, imagining her conjured body shoving through the hole she had made in the wall. She pushed her consciousness up towards her head, feeling as though she were climbing a chimney on the outside, with only the bare bricks to hold on to, and if she made a wrong movement she would fall back down. She also pushed some downwards, trying to connect to her power. Her knees, her real knees, could barely take the strain and they buckled. Her instincts quickly made her arms her own again and they took her weight as she fell forwards onto them. Her palms hurt where they had struck the ground, but it was real, the pain was real and completely her own. _It _was screaming inside her head, louder than anything she had ever heard, trying to push _its_ way back to the front. She winced at the strain of keeping _it_ back. _It_ hadn't been lying, _it_ was incredibly powerful, but the body was still hers, and she wasn't going to let it go. Her head hurt with the magnitude of trying to keep _it_ back, trying to keep herself forward and in the present, so much so that she almost missed the disbelieving gasp of,

"Andy?"


	16. Chapter 16

Looking up was painful but she had to. She had to fight it, she had to prove that this was her body. She wouldn't let_ it_ take her over and force the Doctor to help_ it_ destroy everything. She would not do that.

Gasping with the pain and wincing from the pulsing agony that _it_ was projecting through her body, Andy looked up into the amazed face of the Doctor.

"You're alright!" he sounded overjoyed at this prospect. Andy could barely think with the pain, but she knew enough that when he bounded forward she shouted,

"Don't!" that pulled him up short quickly, but he obviously didn't understand, "Are you bleeding?" she asked, trying to keep her body under control as _it _tried to force _its_ way back into her body. Again, his expression indicated that he didn't understand. "One drop of blood, remember. It might not…ah," she whimpered as pain spiked through her, "It's trying…to get back through," A quick glance up at the Doctor's face brought the image of a stunned and terrified face. No real help there then.

"It's…still…" At his words Andy felt a small spike of anger, and that was all _it _ needed. She screamed again as _its_ presence consumed her.

"_Did you honestly think it was that easy, Doctor? That this little brat_," here it mentally gave Andy a kick in the ribs, as she clung for dear life to the chimney tower, determined that she wouldn't be sent back behind the opaque curtain, "_could defeat me? I, who saw the swirls of colours that eventually formed into galaxies? I, who have more power than you could dream of Doctor! I, who…_" As _it_ had begun to relax into _its_ taunting ways, she spotted the weakness and pounced. She drove herself back into her body, forcing the darkness back again.

"Get away!" she shrieked, when she had control of her mouth again, "Don't touch me. If it can't have me it'll take youuuuu!" _It_ had tried to push back as she had finished speaking and the pain almost made her faint. She had to get away from the village, away from the Doctor. On stumbling legs and wincing with almost every step, Andy stood up, aware of gasps off to her right, but she was in too much pain to see who had made them. She tried to run, but could only manage a faltering hurried walk, nearly collapsing under the pain and having to use stones, trees and often the ground to support her. But each time she fell, her hands and often her knees registered a new pain, a different pain, a pain that had nothing to do with the entity that kept trying to force its way back through, a pain that was almost delightful in the face of the other crippling pain. And so she focused on that, trying to ground herself in her body, trying hard to keep from losing herself.

_It _was furious. With each step _it_ fought to regain what _it_ considered _its_ rightful territory. Andy pushed _it_ back with every ounce of will she had left, which didn't feel like much. _It _kept trying to whisper to her as well, trying to tempt her like it did before, trying to intimidate her when that failed. She continued pushing it away, continued ignoring it all.

Finally she couldn't take anymore. She had to rest or her mind was going to explode. She collapsed onto the ground, about half a mile from the village. It was only then that she noticed people had followed her. A group of men from the village, some of them armed with pitchforks and sticks, had followed at a distance. Closer to her, Matros stood staring at her with a peculiar mix of horror and concern on his face. She felt a small surge of love for the man she had hated for the last nine years. His eyes, though horrified, were clear of alcohol and yet he had chosen to follow her, even like this. And closest of all,

"I…told you…to stay away, Doctor," such was the pain of holding _it_ back, she could barely get the words out.

"I won't leave you until it does." This simple sentence, and said with the utmost determination, had _it_ so furious that, out of nowhere, _it _shot to the surface of her conscience.

"_Then you will be my next host when I leave her body an empty shell. I will torture her mind and break her body until she is unrecognisable to any. I will watch as the winds and stones grind her into the dust that she is. I will survive long after this bitch is dead! And I shall survive in you!_" Back behind the opaque curtain, although not by much, Andy fought back with her now conjured body, back to kicking and punching the curtain to let her through. _Its _anger was too strong, it was like trying to break through iron, but she pummelled at it all the same. Some connection must still have existed because she heard the Doctor say,

"No, you won't. And do you want to know why? Because she won't let you," _it_ scoffed at this, but the Doctor continued, "You're supposed to be all powerful, the scariest thing alive, the deepest darkest being that's ever existed. Well, you're not," Andy wasn't sure in that moment which emotion registered highest, anger or disbelief, however she used it as the opportunity to slip through the curtain and began to climb the chimney tower again "I've seen things that would have even you terrified. I've seen monsters that were supposed to be undefeatable, fought people that had lost all humanity, even escaped the Devil. And I can tell you in this moment that I am still more afraid of them than I will ever be of you," This time anger was definitely prominent. Andy winced at the surge of loathing swept past her, but she clung to herself, willing her being through, "Because do you know what you are? You're an idea. That's all. An idea made manifest. Everything that's wrong with people, human beings, aliens, all of us, that's all you are. You are everything cruel and evil mixed into one and then, that was given a mind. But minds can be tricked, can't they? Of course they can, that's what you've based your entire existence on, being able to trick minds into giving you what you want. Well I'm here to tell you, that even although minds can create the most grotesque and horrid fantasies, the worst tortures, the ultimate weapons; they can also be full of such goodness, such kindness and such caring. They can create stories, music, paintings, love; everything that you can't do or make, they can. And guess which kind of mind you're inhabiting," Throughout this speech, although the pain grew with _its_ anger, Andy had managed to get her conscience into such a position that she could leap forward and take control at any second. And she knew that the Doctor had been helping her do that, by stalling _it_ and giving _it_ something else to focus on. Then, utter agony, as _it_ spoke, using her mouth,

"_She was born weak. And the weak do not change._" But there was some doubt in _its_ words and Andy clung on tightly to where she was positioned, ready to take back her own body.

"You think she's weak! But even you know that isn't true. You've been in there for nine years, why hasn't Andy gone off her rocker and killed everybody yet? And why is it that the rock-falls only happen in the morning?" Suddenly Andy's mind sharpened. She had wondered that as well, but why was he asking _it_? There was silence as she thought. But no…surely not!

"It's because you couldn't take her over completely, could you? You can't access her powers at all, can you? That raw power, the power that makes her so great, the power that could tear this world in two, is just out of your reach. You can't absorb her because then she'd lose it, and then she'd be worthless to you. So you stayed in her body controlling what little amount of her power you could while she was sleeping, because that's when her mind was most vulnerable, to create the rock-falls. Giving her a purpose to stick around for, but ostracising her from the town so that she could still feel those feelings that give you your power. The perfect description of a parasite." Anger filled Andy's body, part of it hers, part of it not. But hers was much stronger.

"It was your fault," she screamed in her head, throwing every ounce of will at the entity, "It was your fault that I lived my life like that, your fault I lost everything I had to lose. YOU!" She came back into herself with a huge gasp, as her lungs began working again. She pulled her face up to look at the Doctor, letting him see her green eyes, know that it was her this time.

"It wasn't me?" she dared not believe it. He gave a small smile,

"No, Andy, it was never you." In relief she realised a sigh, but quickly the pain returned. Just because she was in control now, didn't mean that _it_ had gone.

"_It_ was bluffing," she said, just so that the Doctor knew for certain, "Only I can access my powers, _it_ can't."

"I know. But listen, Andy, I can help you." The Doctor said, pulling up his shirt sleeve. Andy stared in complete bewilderment until he pulled out a knife,

"NO!" she screeched, jumping up and away from the Doctor, even as the entity soared forwards, trying to get in control.

"Andy, I've lived longer. I understand that it's just an idea. I can defeat it. I know I can."

"No, I won't let you," and suddenly she was running. Ignoring _it_, ignoring every impulse and wish to have the pain over with, to just let everything go. _It_ didn't want to lose _its_ chance so _it_ buckled her knees. She cried out as she hit the ground, but looking up, she saw a dark space in front of her. In her rush from the village, she had gravitated towards the mountain. And in front of her was the cave. The cave she had entered nine years ago, called by a fragile voice that had cried for help, that had haunted her ever since. Where it began, and now she would end it. She forced her knees to hold her weight and walked towards it. _It_ tried to stop her, but she fought _it_ with every ounce of will she possessed. She heard voices behind her, but didn't look back until she was inside the cave entrance. The Doctor and Matros stood outside, both sets of eyes pleading with her not to do this. She lifted her hand in warning, Matros took the hint and stepped back, pulling the Doctor with him, as Andy brought a huge stone down over the entrance of the cave, effectively sealing herself, and _it_, inside.


	17. Chapter 17

It was suddenly quiet, and very dark, in the cave. As her eyes slowly adjusted to what little light penetrated, she saw the passage she had walked along the first time, which led deeper into the mountain. She shivered as she remembered her nine year old self, almost skipping down there, in the hope of helping whoever needed it. She didn't dare touch the stones around her to see the old memory. She had revisited this place plenty of times in her nightmares.

A wave of crippling pain rushed through her and she fell to her knees again. Her back couldn't support her and so she fell full length on the ground, trembling, on her front. Ragged breaths were torn from her throat as she fought to keep her mind her own. Now that she was alone, she also wasn't afraid to let out a small groan of pain.

"_What do you hope to achieve with this, girl?_" _It_ whispered in her mind. Andy tried to fight it, she would not lose herself now, "_You've locked out your only source of help. You'd only to touch him and I would have left you. You wouldn't have to die._"

"You really think I believe you?" Andy spat, not afraid to seemingly talk to herself either. Technically there were two of them in the cave, "You would have probably killed me and then him too." A sly chuckle in her head followed her pants of agony,

"_So little belief in your fellow man. He is a Time Lord after all. Has lived for centuries, will probably live for more. I would have all the time in the world to bring him round to my side,_"

"He would have resisted you," Andy's voice became rougher as the pain intensified.

"_He would have lost. As you will,_" the voice grew stronger, and Andy felt her feet leave her control. She scrambled desperately in her mind to bring them back, but _it_ took advantage of her panic and took her legs up to the knee,

"No! I won't lose. I've kept you at bay for nine years, you think I'm going to lose now!" Her voice was tight, and her misgivings made the doubt palpable.

"_You don't really believe that, do you, child?_" suddenly she couldn't feel her legs. They were no longer hers. Yet her legs rose her up and walked to the left of the rocky passage. Stalactites dripped water into a hollow in the rock, forming a small pool. Andy's legs settled her down there, and in the pool of water, in the dim light, she saw her irises, green for now, but with a ring of black around the outside, "_Do you truly believe that I could have been held back by a little girl? Because that's what you were, if you recall. A stupid little girl, who wandered from the path._"

"I thought you needed help. You called out, told me to help you." Andy gritted her teeth and tried to bring her legs under her own control, but it was like the curtain was back, now blocking off her legs.

"_Why would someone who needed help hide at the back of a cave? Surely they would have been at the entrance. You were so easy to entice. You wanted to be noticed. To be helpful. To be loved._"

"Why is that a bad thing?" Andy ground out in frustration. She could feel _it_ slowly making _its_ way slowly up her torso, paralysing her, and tried to fight her fear.

"_It makes you weak. To be loved, you have to please, and to please you must roll over like a dog and do what anybody wants you to. No questions asked. And you did that so well, didn't you? When the rocks fell the first time you ran out and lifted them without a second thought. Didn't even notice the strain. Then you turned around, expecting to be thanked, lauded, worshipped and everybody was staring at you in fear. And after that they took you for granted, didn't they? Always there, always willing, never asking for anything more. What a good little dog you were._"

"I was nine years old," Andy said. The pain was so strong she could barely think, she just wanted it to be over. The paralysing force swept up her arms, taking them with barely a skirmish.

"_Weak!_" _it_ barked at her, "_They saw it from the start and they made use of it. Matros didn't lift a finger, did he? He was happy to see you go. One less mouth to feed._" Matros. Dirty old Matros. Never cared. But hadn't he been outside, just a minute ago? The numbness had now reached her neck, "_And then finally, nine years of loneliness, of misery, of cold. Of nobody caring. Of nobody wanting you around. No boys wanting to kiss you. No girls wanting to plait your hair. No Matros to look proudly at you. Nobody cared but me. Nobody wanted you, but me. I have been through it all with you. I have seen every hurt, every curse laid upon you. And I can help you_." Something was wrong. Andy knew something was wrong. What it said was right, but…hadn't the Doctor said that this was what it did. Used people's weaknesses against them. But she couldn't feel the pain anymore. She was numb almost everywhere. But the pain had been…real. This numbness wasn't real. She couldn't move. Suddenly she wanted to move. She wanted to walk, run, jump. Who cared, she just wanted to move. But _it _was stopping her. She reached down to stop the numbness, but it snapped back at her, bringing the full force of the pain back. It made Andy cry out.

"_Do you want this? Do you? Because I can give it back if you like? Your entire body, on fire, hot knives stuck in you, red hot pokers, everywhere. Do you want that? The pain?"_

"I want to feel," she said.

"_To feel is to be weak. To want is to be weak. Are you really that weak? I let myself believe you were stronger. Was I wrong?_" Was she weak? Was she really? She could remember feeling, the pain of it, and the warmth. Those days when Matros gave her a rare smile, the sun had seemed to shine brighter. The quiet pride she took in her work, only to be humbled when it all came crashing back down a few days later. The beauty she saw in the woods, the earth itself. The brilliant thrill of the power, the thrumming of the heartbeat of the planet itself in her veins. Was all of that weak? Suddenly she could move her neck. She turned towards the pool. Her irises were nearly pitch black. There was a tiny ring of green in the middle.

"Wrong."

"_What?_" _It_ sounded a little uncertain.

"My eyes are green," she said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. Her head suddenly hurt like lightning had just struck it, "NO!" she shouted.

"_Weak. Pathetic. Worthless. You are nothing, you know. No wonder nobody ever wanted you. You can't do anything properly. Can't even keep a mountain together. What makes you think you're special in anyway at all? You are nothing. You're not even pretty. Why would any boy want you? Why would anyone want to be your friend? You're little above an animal. No wonder Matros never looked at you like a daughter. You are nothing. You will not defeat me! I am thousands of years old! I saw the first light of suns and I will live to see them die! You are worthless, you will die like the dog you are. Alone and pathetic. You are nothing!_"

"YES!" There was a beat of silence. Then inside her head,

"_What?_"

"Yes, I am nothing." Something in Andy's heart broke as she admitted that, but it didn't matter, "I have nothing, I am nothing. But I…" she winced as a sharp pain lanced through her, "Am so much more than that. I understand things you can't," another jolt of pain, another moan to go with it, but she could move her shoulders, "I've seen things even you won't," the pain rose with every centimetre she fought back, but her right arm was free, "And I don't need Matros or anyone to be proud of me. I know, I know I'm enough, for me," Even as the pain increased, her voice never wavered. Her stomach muscles rose and fell with every breath, "Because the Doctor was right," pain beyond pain followed these words but she clamped it down, flooded it all into her left arm, the arm that bore the scar, that had let it in in the first place, as her legs finally responded to her commands, "You are just an idea that ended up in my head. Well, it's my head. And it's my body. And it's my soul. And I'd like it back now. So get the hell out of me," she snarled, pushing with every force of her will, pushing through the pain, at the parasite that had infected her long enough. The pain was excruciating and she couldn't hold it in anymore. She screamed and thrashed and writhed but when she looked down at her left arm, black smoke seemed to be coming out of a spot near her forearm. She watched in horrified fascination, as the air around her grew blacker. She felt it leave. Suddenly there was an emptiness where there had always been something. But it was a good emptiness and she relaxed.

But then a sharp tug came from her arm. Another wave of pain flowed through her, worse than anything she had ever experienced before. The cave around her began to shake, like there was an earthquake. Dust of ages began to fall from the ceiling. Through slitted eyes, Andy squinted down at her arm. What looked like gold tendrils, apparently attached to the black smoke, were slowly flowing up from her arm. She felt herself begin to fade. A part of the black smoke came close to her,

"_You will never be rid of me. You will come with me, and you will know the misery of this life_"

Some part of Andy realised that it was her life force that was attached to the black smoke. It was pulling out her soul. She tried desperately to pull it back to her but her vision was failing. She was very warm though. It felt like her body was sinking into a nice warm bath. The cave was being filled with some sort of green light. Her hearing was perfectly fine and the rumbling in the cave was getting worse. A loud crack came from above. Andy's eyes opened. Almost in slow motion, a stalactite was falling towards her face. Before her eyes closed, Andy remembered seeing her right arm raise up, in an attempt to stop it.


	18. Chapter 18

**So...this is where it gets stupid, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Sorry.**

"Andy! Andy!" The Doctor hadn't stopped calling for her since the stone had fallen over the entrance. Matros sat on a stone near the cave, watching. At first the Doctor had been angry, demanding to know why Matros wasn't helping.

"It looked like something she needed to do for herself," was the reply. This had stumped the Doctor, and had even gotten him to sit down beside Matros for a time, until he heard screaming in the cave. Then he'd gotten his sonic screwdriver out, and had tried every way he knew to try and move the stone, even pushing it. Matros watched all of this, not amused, but at the same time not believing that help was needed. Finally the Doctor gave up pushing when the screams and rumbles from within the cave abruptly cut off.

"Andy! Andy!" There was silence, except for the Doctor's hurried breathing. Then the stone, which had resisted all of the Doctor's efforts, was lifted into the air. The Doctor immediately scanned the entrance of the cave.

"Andy?" he called, checking the readings. What he saw there had him staring, open mouthed at his device, and then up at the cave. A large in-take of breath came from Matros at the same moment. They'd both seen them. The large glowing green lights. They came steadily towards the two men. The Doctor stepped to the side, while Matros stumbled back. The sound of footsteps came from within the cave, and out came Andy. Or at least, Andy's body. Because the glowing green light was shining out of her eyes. Not just her irises, but what had been the whites, were glowing fluorescent green.

She walked out with purpose, as if she had never had a cause to doubt herself in her life. The way she held herself, she appeared to have grown about three feet since entering the cave. She was imposing. She was magnificent. But she wasn't Andy. She looked to Matros and regarded him,

"**Thank you for staying**," her voice wasn't Andy's. It was rich and cultured and rang with the sound of eternity. The Doctor got goosebumps just looking at her. Matros looked terrified. He clearly didn't know what to do. In the end he just nodded his head. She returned the gesture. Her gaze swept around to the Doctor. He shifted, uncomfortably. She seemed to be reading his thoughts.

"**It was a foolish thing to offer, Time Lord. But you offered it to save her, and I appreciate that**." He also nodded, but couldn't resist asking,

"Who are you?" She smiled. It was nothing like the Devouring Dark's twisted smile. This was a smile of kindness, and a little amusement.

"**I am all around you. I am the tallest mountain and the tiniest grain of sand. I am Gaia.**" She said it simply, as if wondering why he hadn't guessed already. But in a day of extraordinary surprises, this was perhaps number one.

"The goddess of the earth," the Doctor said incredulously. Matros' eyes grew wide, and the Doctor could almost see his mind decide that it had seen too much today. He fell to the floor in a dead faint. Neither Gaia in Andy's body, nor the Doctor made any move to catch him. She looked at him, and he looked at her.

"Why are you here?" he finally broke the silence.

"**To protect Andy**," her voice was again kind.

"Where is Andy?" he worried.

"**Sleeping. Here,**" she pointed to a space at the back of her head, "**She has had a rather long and painful day, she could use the rest, don't you think?**"

"Of course. I was just…is it gone?" he was worried that after everything she may have succumbed.

"**Yes, the Dark is gone. It will not come back for some time**." she glared into the darkness of the cave, and brought the stone, which was still hovering in the air, back down to rest in front of the entrance, effectively sealing the cave off.

"You can name it?" the Doctor said, uneasily.

"**It has just been defeated, and by a young girl, no less. It will not be strong by any means.**"

"She really defeated it," he was amazed, for someone so young to have accomplished such a thing, it was unheard of. Gaia's eyes sharpened,

"**Just barely, I should add. It tried to take her with it. It would have succeeded, had I not stopped it. Do not celebrate yet, Time Lord**," her tone was crisp with anger.

"What do you mean 'it tried to take her with it'?" it sounded ominous enough that the Doctor thought he already knew.

"**It tried to take her soul. I would not let it. Her soul is bound to me, and I will not lose her now**,"

"But, why? Why do you care?" The Doctor was honoured to meet a full blood goddess, even if she was wearing a human body, but he didn't understand what she wanted with Andy.

"**She's my daughter,**" Gaia replied.

Another second and the Doctor thought he might join Matros on the floor.

"She's what!"

"**Well, technically she's my granddaughter, with several thousand 'great's placed between, but I always think of my Magis as my immediate children.**"

"You…you have descendants! But that means you have to have had…" He blushed when he realised what he was about to say. The bright green eyes looked at him with amusement.

"**In my corporeal body, I am human shaped, and so have human desires. And just because I am a goddess doesn't mean I have never known love,**" here her eyes took on a sadness that was millennia old, "**I have loved before**."

"So what's your consciousness doing in a girl on this back water world?" The Doctor wanted to know. Again she smiled.

"**This is only a tiny part of my conscience. The rest remains on my planet, where my people await the return of our lost Magi.**"

"You said that word before. What is a 'Magi'?"

"**And I thought Time Lords knew everything**," she said with a smile, "**She is the leader of my world. Every three generations, a child is born of my line who inherits some of my own power. They are placed into power and the entire planet pays homage to them. Andromeda is the current Magi**."

"Andromeda?"

"**She thinks it's a bit of a mouthful. Anyway, her parents managed to get her away from the planet in time to save her life. She was only a little thing, barely a few months old. How she came to be on this planet, Matros has already told you.**"

"What did she need saving from?"

"**What do heirs of any true blood line need saving from? People who are unhappy with the system,**" here the goddess' face pulled back into a snarl, "**I hope she gives them the justice they deserve. They have pilfered my planet long enough. It is time for the true Magi to return home.**"

"She isn't ready." the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. But on reflection he knew they were true.

"**I believe the same. I am glad that you arrived here, Doctor, for I need your help. Take Andromeda with you when you return to the stars. Show her the wonders and dangers of the universe. Teach her justice, control, but above all else, teach her leadership. She must be ready when the time comes to return.**"

"She's only eighteen. You think she's strong enough to carry the burden of an entire planet on her shoulders?"

"**Have you had your eyes open at all tonight?**" here she lifted Andy's left arm up and showed the Doctor the forearm. He almost fainted in shock. There was a scar there in the exact shape of the sign for the Devouring Dark, "**Relax, it is an exit wound. She is the only person in history to wear this. She should wear it as a badge of honour. And I know that she is the strongest of my children there has ever been. Not many of them could have defeated the Dark.**"

Once the Doctor had his heart rate under control he suddenly realised,

"You said you were here to protect her. How did…that…get in her in the first place?" Gaia glared at him, then she snapped,

"**I did not realise what it truly was until it entered her, and then I could do nothing about it. I have helped her in small ways to combat it throughout the nine years but ultimately it was all her. But mark this Doctor, I shall be on the alert now, and if ever she should need me, all she need do is ask me. Tell her this.**"

"What else do I tell her?"

"**Whatever she wishes to know, of course. Now I must retreat. Please catch her and then take her into the woods to replenish her strength. And in the morning, take her with you when you leave**." With those last words, the vibrant green slowly began to fade from Andy's eyes. As he watched her body began to sag. He quickly caught her before she could collapse on the ground like Matros. She seemed to have shrunk to her normal size. She was Andy again. Gaia had gone.

_No, not gone_, he thought, _Retreated. That was the word she used. She's still inside her, but she's a good entity, instead of…the other one_. He had learned his lesson. He didn't even try to think its name. With a sigh and an apologetic look at Matros, he hoisted Andy up into his arms and bore her away to the woods.


	19. Chapter 19

**If anyone is still with me after this, well your threshold for bullshit must be high. Still sorry.**

The sun had set hours ago, but the path back to the village was still lit by the light of the red moon. The Doctor stopped just before the light of the village could illuminate him. Peering between the houses, he saw a huge bonfire had been erected and that the people were arming themselves. The looks on their faces clearly defined their intentions. They would lynch Andy in the morning, regardless of whether…it…was in her or not.

Deciding that enough had happened tonight, and that he didn't want to explain it to irate villagers who probably wouldn't listen anyway, the Doctor carefully edged his way around the town until he came to the tree line behind Matros' house. As quietly as he could, he walked into the trees. He could barely remember the way to Andy's clearing in the daylight; he knew there was no chance of finding it at night. But he followed the path to Andy's 'shack' and laid her down outside it. The second her skin touched the earth, the tendrils sprung up and attached themselves to her skin. She was bathed in the eerie glowing green light. Except that it wasn't so creepy anymore. Not now that the Doctor understood what accounted for Andy's impossibility. He tried to turn it all over in his mind.

A demi-goddess. Andy was a demi-goddess. But even as he looked at her, the Doctor couldn't place her in the same league as Gaia, let alone the same pantheon. She looked like an ordinary girl who was still growing. She just wasn't ready.

She had had to escape. Her parents had had to take her away, because somebody hadn't liked that fact that she would be the Magi. A Magi. The leader of an entire planet. Not democratically chosen, but by birth right. She had no choice in the matter. She had been given a cardboard cut-out and she was supposed to fit into it. And he was supposed to help her.

He could barely let himself think about that. He was supposed to groom the leader of a planet? He didn't really know anything about leading. Oh sure, he assumed control of whatever situation he found himself in and generally came out on top, maybe minus a few lives, but overall with good results. But the actual leading he gave to people who stayed, who could wait around and deal with the problems and not go running off as soon as their feet got itchy. He took people along because he sometimes got bored and needed to be reminded of just how big and brilliant the universe was. His Companions awe-struck faces always gave him that. And sometimes just so that he could show off. But if he took Andy, he'd have to deal with the responsibility of her education. He didn't want the responsibility. He didn't do well with responsibility. But then, he couldn't disobey a direct order from a goddess, could he?

Gaia scared him. He could admit that now. The way her eyes had pierced him, her complete aloofness, her confidence had intimidated him. He was old but she was at least a thousand times older than him. And even she could be hurt by love. He didn't like to think about that either. Because looking down at Andy, he could see himself taking her on, not just as a prodigy, but as a sort of daughter as well. And she'd have to leave. And it always hurt when they left.

The light around Andy's body suddenly began to fade. Looking up at the sky the Doctor saw that he had been musing about Andy and himself all night. He watched in fascination as the light seemed to retract into Andy's body and then the vines detached themselves. Her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath and then let it out in a long moan. Slowly her eyes opened. Looking confused she glanced about and then looked straight at him,

"Doctor?"

What was she doing in the grass near her shack? Surely she should be lying in that cave? And shouldn't she be dead? _It_ had nearly taken her soul and even if it hadn't, that stalactite should have split her head in half. How had she survived that? And more to the point, how had the Doctor saved her?

"What did you do?" her mouth was dry and her entire body heavy. She had never felt more exhausted in her life, even after sleeping as deeply as she had. Seeing his flustered look she heard him reply,

"I didn't do anything. Don't you…remember?"

"I remember pain," she said flatly, trying to remember the truth, "Excruciating pain, first when it left me and the second when it tried to take my soul." Unconsciously she lifted her left arm up and then gasped at the scar she saw there.

"Oh gods!" she screamed, standing up in horror.

"No, no, Andy, it's OK, it's alright." the Doctor said, also jumping up with her.

"How can it be alright!" she yelled at him.

"It's an exit wound, Andy! It's gone! It can't hurt you anymore." The Doctor shouted back. That stopped Andy in her tracks. Staring down at her arm in horror she hardly dared believe it.

"You're sure?"

"Oh, I'm sure." Hardly able to believe that _it_ had inscribed itself on her skin, Andy looked away in shame, "Hey, Andy, it's a scar of triumph, not disgrace. Nobody else in the universe bears that scar, because nobody has ever defeated it. You're special, Andy."

"Then you wear it," she spat, "_It_ told me I would never be free of _it_. Now I know that's true. I'll never be able to look at this arm again and not flinch. I'll remember the pain every day for the rest of my life. Do you think I want that?" The Doctor stood in silence, apparently waiting for her to calm down.

"So you'll never forget how strong you are," she looked up at him sharply, "Andy, you've done something even I couldn't have done. Something nobody has ever done. It's a mark of honour, Andy, a tribute to your strength and your soul, which is entirely your own. Be proud of what you did, Andy. But never forget what it cost you." Breathing deeply, Andy began to calm down. She saw the truth in what he said, but all she could think was that the monster had branded itself into her flesh. She'd be haunted by it for the rest of her life.

"How did I get here?" she asked.

"I carried you." he replied.

"How did you move the stone?" her head was beginning to hurt, she sat back down again.

"I didn't. You did. Or at least your body did." She froze.

"What the hell do you mean by that?" fear rose in her again.

"Andy, breathe. It's gone, it's never coming back. But there is something else inside you." she couldn't contain herself anymore, she let out a sob. All of that pain, torture and she still wasn't free, "No, Andy. It's a good one. It's there to protect you, to save you. **She** stopped…it…from taking your soul. **She** doesn't mean you any harm!" At his words two emotions hit Andy hard; disbelief and confusion.

"**It**…spoke to you?"

"Yes," the Doctor suddenly looked like he was treading on dangerous ground, "**She's** from your planet," Andy's head shot up, her eyes full of disbelief, "**She's **there to protect you. And if you ever need **her**, **she** said that all you ever had to do was ask."

Andy could barely process this. There was another…entity inside her, but it was a good one? It was offering to help her? And was it truly from her planet? So many thoughts whirled through Andy's brain; she could barely think what to ask first.

"Does **it** know who I am?" The Doctor took a deep breath. Apparently that wasn't good news.

"Yes, **she** did." Trying to think what could have caused his reaction, her stumped brain asked the first thing that came to mind,

"Am I important?"

"Yes," came the instant answer. That made her pause. She was important! She was worth something after all! But it couldn't all be good; otherwise the Doctor would be happy. She decided to put that out of her head for now.

"Does **it** know where my parents are?" Hope rose in her chest.

"**She** didn't say," the Doctor said, slightly emphasising the 'she'. Her heart slowly crumpled. Well, that didn't mean **She** didn't know, it just mean that **She** hadn't said.

"Did **She** say anything else?" the Doctor smirked at Andy's over pronunciation of 'she' but replied all the same,

"Um…only that you were to come with me?" he phrased this as a question, as if worried about her reaction. Andy's eyes lit up and her spirits soared,

"I get to go with you!" she screeched, and launched herself at the Doctor. He caught her and held her tight, laughing slightly at her reaction.

"I take it you don't mind this idea then," he smirked as she pulled back. Too happy even for words, Andy simply shook her head.

It was at that moment that they were rather rudely interrupted.


	20. Chapter 20

"Oi, you demon!" came the cry from behind Andy. The Doctor looked up and gulped. The lynch mob had appeared. The women carried lighted torches, their faces screwed up in anger and hate. The men all carried some form of weapon, whether it had a sharpened edge, like a hunting knife, or a blunt end, like a pitchfork. Their faces seemed devoid of every emotion, but their eyes betrayed their fear and their anger. Looking back towards the village the Doctor even caught sight of some children following behind to try and see the outcast finally get her just desserts. They came slowly through the trees, but they moved with a purpose that got them closer than any of their speed. The Doctor had been at the receiving edge of crazed mobs such as this before and knew that the best time to run had been ten minutes ago. But as he looked towards Andy he saw, with shock and a rather sinking heart, that she had turned to face the mob, staring them down and practically daring them to come any closer.

The first man she levelled this gaze at came to a complete stop in the face of it. The man behind him walked straight into him, but all the others came to a halt beside him, some five metres from Andy. In his mind, the Doctor snorted in triumph. They were still terrified of her, even although they had at least forty men and she was all on her own. Apart from the conscience of a goddess inside her. Oh, and him, he supposed.

"Well?" she asked, her hands on her hips and drawing out the word. Silence. Complete and utter silence ensued. Nobody wanted to be the first one to talk to the devil woman.

"It's not here," she stated. The men and women looked at each other in confusion, "What you came to kill, it's not here," she explained, "I defeated it. It's gone." Silence again as the crowd thought this over. Then a harsh laugh came from among the women. Standing on his tiptoes the Doctor saw Merrick's mother laughing her derision at Andy's words.

"Nothing can defeat that thing," she shouted, "Not even the devil girl herself!" Some of the men suddenly had a murderous look in their eyes. The Doctor wanted to take a step back, but was stopped by Andy's words.

"Then what do you think of this?" He could have kicked himself for not seeing where she was going with this. Of course she was going to show them the scar. But surely she realised that this would only incite them to an even bigger fury. A scream of utter terror was emitted by some of the women, and even some of the men paled. The man who had been the first to stop fainted.

"It's the mark of the devil itself! It's inscribed itself into the devil bitch's arm! Kill her!" At first Merrick's mother's words incited only herself. But then the wind began to pick up, leaves began to fly through the air and the trees bowed almost double. Remembering where he'd seen this before the Doctor turned towards Andy. Sure enough the ground beneath her feet was glowing again, but this time her eyes were open. And her irises also seemed to glow, just a little bit.

"Your mouth always was too big for your own good, Marsaia," Andy's eyes narrowed, "But don't you worry about me. I'm leaving this world. You'll never have to fear me again. You can go about your ignorant little lives and eventually you'll forget all about me. But I leave you one warning: never go near the mountain. Only death awaits you there." She had them all spellbound, not just with her power but with her voice, which sounded reminiscent of Gaia's, and her eyes. In that second, the Doctor caught a glimpse of the Magi she could become. And he knew he would help her to achieve it.

Andy began to walk towards the villagers. Without a second thought, he followed her. When her hurricane of leaves drew near to the villagers they fell over one another trying to get out of the way of it. Women still screamed as the leaves came closer, even some of the men gave out cries of anguish, but the leaves never touched them, simply warded them off. Andy walked back down the path to the village square, one bare foot in front of the other, for once completely comfortable in her surroundings. Until she was out of the tree line. Then she stopped. The Doctor looked around her to see what she had stopped for. Matros stood in front of her, mesmerised and a little terrified of the scene before him. Andy seemed to consider him for a minute. Then she walked forwards and pulled her guardian into a hug. He barely had time to reciprocate before she pulled away and slapped him so hard that the crack could be heard by the mob in the woods behind them. Matros gave a cry of pain and looked up at Andy incredulously.

"You know why," she said simply, and walked off towards the TARDIS. The Doctor hardly approved of her goodbye, but wisely chose to say nothing. As he walked by Matros he could have sworn he heard him say,

"It was her!"

Returning his attention to Andy, he saw she had stopped outside the TARDIS. She seemed to be considering it, as she had considered Matros. The Doctor hoped she wasn't about to slap his ship as well. He hurried up to Andy, who turned and said,

"This isn't real wood, is it?" The Doctor was stumped. In all his years, nobody had ever bothered to ask if the TARDIS was made of real wood or not.

"No, it's just an image she projects, to keep herself hidden. But she could be anything. A wardrobe, a bath, even a tree." Andy nodded, a little uncertainly. The Doctor however, smiled.

"Just you wait til you see the inside of her though," he couldn't wait to see her face. She lifted an eyebrow expectantly. He hurriedly opened the door and ushered her in. With one last look at the planet she despised, Andy stepped inside the TARDIS. Her gasp was like music to his ears.

"It's…it's bigger on the inside!" He laughed and shut the door behind him…

**And we are all done. I'm sorry if Gaia was too much to swallow, but come on the 10th Doctor went up against the Devil. It's totally been established that sometimes they have gods, right? Anyway, I was going to continue this into a series, Andy was going to go travelling, learn some hard lessons about leadership, get to know the Torchwood team and fall in love with Ianto. Then leave and finally find her planet. And everything from there til her death to. But...it's silly. And I have other fics that I want to write now. So I'm giving permission for someone to take over and write Andy's story, if they like. Totally fine if you don't. Either way I hope you had fun. **


End file.
